


She'd Be Looking Even Better With Me

by Asukachan07



Series: WestAllen AUs [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Barry Allen is Zoom, Barry and Iris aren't married, But he's a criminal, But only two count, Earth-2, F/M, Iris West is a cop, Slow Burn, So many speedsters, Zoom isn't evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2020-10-03 23:11:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 63,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20461070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asukachan07/pseuds/Asukachan07
Summary: Earth-2 AU:Iris West is the best detective at CCPD, overdue for a promotion. When Zoom—the criminal speedster who's only interested in stealing high tech and flirting with her—is suspected of murdering a bunch of gang members, she sets to work with him to arrest the copycat speedster and rid the streets of Central City of this superpowered menace.While working with Zoom leads her on the wrong side of the law, Detective West still plans on using the genius of Barry Allen—the brilliant CSI she has a crush on—to exonerate the friendly speedster.





	1. Part 1: Iris

**Author's Note:**

> I've hit a major writer block for my other WIPs, so please read my new WIP?
> 
> Title from the Song "Here Comes Trouble" by Honor Society.

_ Who the hell did this? _ Detective Iris West wondered as she frowned at the gruesome crime scene. 

Three male bodies—at least one of them a member of the Hammers gang, if his arm tattoo was anything to go by—with faces beaten up beyond recognition, found at the river bank by the northern bridge in District 4. 

Iris ruled out a gang war right away, because the bandits had been armed. None of their rivals would’ve ambushed them without guns of their own, and there was no sign of bullet wounds on the corpses. And that was just one of the oddest parts of the whole affair.

After carefully looking around the perimeter set by the yellow tape, Detective West found the other odd part: the shell casings of the supposed fired bullets were all stacked in a neat pile right over the bank.

“Hey, West!” her partner Floyd Lawton called out as he ducked down the tape to approach her. “Actually got witnesses, bunch of kids who were skipping class.”

“Not the most reliable source of information,” Iris commented snarkily “but what did they say?”

“That they saw flashes of lightning around the area as the crime was committed,” Lawton described, glancing at his open notepad, “and that they felt a gush of wind pass them as they ran towards the scene.”

“They ran towards the scene?” West repeated, ignoring the dread that settled in her stomach. “I thought that it was bikers who called first responders.”

“They didn’t want to get questioned at first,” Lawton informed with an eye roll. “Weed,” he added at a lower voice.

Iris gave an eye roll of her own before staring back at the pile of shell casings, her partner following her gaze.

She’d suspected that this was the work of a meta-human, but not _ that _ meta-human.

“The Captain won’t be pleased, especially after yesterday,” Iris’ partner mumbled as he flipped his notepad closed.

“We don’t know that it’s Zoom,” Iris replied sharply as she stared at the disfigured faces of the victims.

“Really, West?” Lawton scoffed. “Stops bullets, produces electricity as he moves, and leaves with a gush of wind? No need for Allen to tell us that there are traces of dark matter lingering around. Speaking of which, where the hell is Allen?”

“I’m here!” the high-pitched voice of the hardest-working CSI of CCPD shouted a few yards away, and Iris forced her smile down as she saw the lanky man tumble down the slope leading to the crime scene while cradling his toolbox.

Bartholomew Henry Allen, thankfully called Barry Allen, was the same age as Iris—they’d graduated from Central City High the same year—but most people took him for an intern fresh out of college. The nerd vibe that he radiated with his thick-framed glasses and his gelled hair that always managed to fall in his eyes didn’t help his already youthful features.

Iris herself looked younger than her twenty-eight years old, but she used heavy makeup and a permanent scowl on her face to be taken seriously.

“That’s not possible,” Allen exclaimed breathlessly after ten minutes of working his magic around the crime scene.

“What’s not possible?” both detectives asked, making sure to stay out of the CSI’s way.

Aside from his constant tardiness, Barry was a very reliable resource at CCPD. He was not just a nerd, he was a smart nerd. He had reversed-engineer Dr. Harrison Wells meta-human alert watch to make a highly sensitive dark-matter detector, which allowed the police to tell whether powers had been used at a crime scene in a thirty-six hours time frame; his glasses actually allowed him to see minute details that escaped even people with a twenty-twenty vision; the quality of his tests rivaled that of high end laboratories like Mercury or Tannhauser—not S.T.A.R. Labs, though—because he’d improved the equipment with his own hands.

Really, if Iris had the time to date, she’d have hit on Allen a while ago. As it was, her career kept her busy until way past office hours.

She wouldn’t have to if her promotion wasn’t depending on her ability to arrest Zoom.

“The footprints not belonging to the victims indicate only one individual,” the CSI confirmed Iris’ suspicion as he crouched down to cast one of said footprints by the stack of bullet shells. “He stood here when the victims used their guns,” he added as he extended his arms towards the dead bodies, “and somehow…”

Rarely did the CSI hesitate when he went on his reenactments of the crime. He was a real chatterbox once he had his theories worked out.

Him trailing off so early in the story showed not that he was unsure of himself, but that he was shocked by what he thought had happened. Iris had seen him make that face very few times, once on their first meta-human case five years ago.

“Somehow?” Lawton prompted, and Allen blinked before waving at the fast-drying cast.

“Somehow he went from here to there,” he said as he pointed at a spot closer to the corpses, which was a good fifteen yards, “without walking. As if he’d teleported, or…”

“Run so fast that he didn’t leave any other footprints in between,” Iris completed his sentence.

“So it was Zoom!” Floyd concluded.

“Or a meta who can teleport,” the woman countered.

She’d arrested one in the past, Shawna Baez, stupidly nicknamed 'Boo'.

The beep of one of Allen’s numerous portable machines drew the two detectives’ attention to the CSI’s toolbox.

“What’s that?” Lawton asked the scientist as the latter read whatever the results of the test was.

“A modified femto-ampere meter,” Allen replied automatically before removing his glasses and sighing loudly.

“What does it do, again?” Iris’ partner asked, and normally she would’ve rolled her eyes at him for not remembering the one piece of equipment they saw used by the techs every time they were on a useless lead to catch Zoom.

But right now, Iris was too shocked by what she could tell was Barry’s preliminary conclusion.

“The air is still charged with the lightning of a speedster,” the younger man announced as he put his glasses back on.

He looked as disappointed as Detective West was.

Yes, Zoom was the most wanted criminal in Central City, and the boon of Iris’ existence a.k.a the lamest reason her superior kept coming with to justify her lack of promotion despite her amazing work in the force. But Zoom was a thief, and had never actually harmed anyone in his path.

To this day, Zoom and his associates had only stolen expensive art pieces, jewelry and high end tech that the robbed labs never agreed to describe in useful details to the police for trade secret reasons. Everyone suspected that the stolen items were weapons and other tools that would allow law enforcers to stop more meta-humans, which obviously Zoom and his friends didn’t want to see completed.

Not that law enforcers necessarily needed more help to stop meta-humans. Any cop with a level head could apprehend the average powered criminal, and very good officers like Iris could handle the worst of them with the right intel and a little bit of preparation. The meta alert app, meta-cuffs and stun guns developed by S.T.A.R. Labs and graciously donated to the precinct by Harrison Wells were more than enough to stop the vast majority of supervillains.

But a high number of influential people in Central City invested a lot of money in anti-meta tech, so the security and productivity of all those private laboratories were the concern of Iris’ superiors. It clearly didn’t matter that one of them was likely responsible for the very existence of meta-humans in the first place.

How people had obtained powers overnight three years ago was still a mystery to the public. The phenomenon wasn’t unique to Central City, but Iris’ hometown counted more documented powered people than any other city in the country. 

The detective’s only source at CCPN was her best friend Linda Park, a sports reporter, who couldn’t find out if any of the stubborn investigative reporters at the Journal had any better theory that Iris’ own ‘one of those crazy scientists with too much money and time on their hands tried to play god’.

“You two look surprised, but I saw this coming,” Lawton declared haughtily as he pulled on his suspenders. “It was only a matter of time before the Dark Speedster accelerated to murder!”

No it wasn’t. The reason why Iris had never put too much effort into arresting Zoom, other than she didn’t care to help those fame-seeking scientists, was that the speedster had helped the police apprehend some of the most dangerous metas. In fact, when meta-human criminals were still a new threat to Central City, the speedster—then called The Streak—had dropped many of them in the cells of the precinct, restrained by the earlier versions of the meta cuffs.

Only West had ever thanked him for his assistance back then, which was probably why he felt comfortable flirting with her whenever they were in the vicinity of each other.

At first Iris had thought that he wanted to bribe her into looking the other way whenever his associates where on her radar, but so far Zoom had never asked her for a favor other than helping civilians in distress he declared himself too busy or too cool to rescue.

How could the friendliest outlaw the young detective knew have committed such a violent crime? In broad daylight?

“In broad daylight,” Iris repeated out loud, drawing the attention of the two men next to her.

“What about daylight?” her partner asked absent-mindedly as he made a face at the dead bodies.

“Zoom only strikes at night,” it was Allen who replied.

West exchanged a knowing look with him, and she took advantage of their locked gaze to admire Barry’s lovely green eyes.

He was so pretty, but also handsome, and definitely cute. Iris knew that he found her attractive too, but either he was just appreciative of her looks but uninterested, or he was too intimidated to make a move first.

“I mean—yeah, um...As far as we know Zoom only operates at night,” the CSI stuttered, a blush blooming on his high cheekbones as their gaze lingered.

It was always fascinating to Iris that, despite his overall shyness, Allen never broke eye contact with her first. There was just this hint of challenge in those otherwise innocent pale eyes that made the detective give in and look away.

“Which confirms my theory that he has a stable day job,” Iris said as she turned her eyes to her partner. “He’s possibly an employee of the very places he robs, who knows? If those labs gave us their complete employees’ list, we could’ve already caught him.”

Both Barry and Floyd snorted.

“What?” Iris asked sharply as she put her fists on her hips and lifted an eyebrow.

Allen had the graciousness to look chastised, but Lawton chuckled.

“Even though the guy has the hots for you, he won’t ever let you find out his identity or arrest him,” her partner speculated. “I bet that every piece of tech he steals is worth a fortune on the black market.”

“Definitely,” Allen agreed before a glare from Iris made him return to his footprint cast.

“I’m still not convinced that this is him,” Detective West voiced out loud as she pointed at the dead bandits with her chin.

“Who else could it be? He’s the only speedster in town,” Lawton pointed out.

Was he? Iris had thought so herself, but she had no proof. 

Considering the nature of their powers, speedsters couldn’t easily be seen. Zoom was a cocky thief who wanted everyone to know that he could bypass the high security of those state of the art facilities. West was certain that if he truly wanted, no one would ever be given the chance to chase after him. 

This was why, as she returned to her car, the detective decided that she’d ask Zoom herself whenever he showed himself next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated! Please feel free to drop recs for Dark!Barry also (WestAllen only please). 
> 
> The chapters are short, so expect me to update three times a week until I hit another writer's block *___*


	2. Part 1_Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris sees Zoom.

When the speedster did appear with a flash of light on the other side of her car in the precinct parking lot, Iris almost screamed in fear. She managed to limit her reaction to a grunt as she dropped her keys.

By the end of the day, three more members of the Hammers had been declared dead by blunt force trauma by the CCPD lead medical examiner. This time there were many eyewitnesses who had identified the murderer as a speedster. Some of the witnesses were Hammers themselves who had managed to hide or escape from the meta-human on a killing spree.

Words on the streets was that a Hammer had stolen from the famous thief and that the Dark Speedster was finally living up to his name by terrorizing the gangsters in return.

“It’s me, Detective,” the familiar vibrating voice announced just as Iris heard someone take a step back.

Taking a centering breath, Iris turned towards her visitor, unstrapping her gun in the process.

She preferred using stun guns, but the weapons were too expensive for officers to carry around, so they stayed locked in the armory unless officers were called for a raid or a chase.

“Wait, did we not established that I can catch bullets, like in week one of our first encounter?” the speedster mocked, hands on his hips and head tilted to the side.

“Which is why you’re the prime suspect of two multiple homicides involving the death of seven armed gang members,” Iris pointed out as she aimed at the masked criminal.

“I didn’t do it and you know it,” the speedster claimed as he shrugged one shoulder before crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m not the only speedster out here.”

“Really?” West asked, relief flooding her veins, though she kept up appearance by maintaining her aim.

“There’s one in Keystone, calls himself _ The Flash _ ,” the man in the black suit informed her. “Which is what I would’ve called myself if I hadn’t been coined with _ The Streak _ first.”

“‘Zoom’ isn’t any better,” the detective couldn’t help but tease, and this time she lowered her gun. “So what, that Flash guy has left his hometown to terrorize Central City?”

“No, the killer you’re looking for isn’t The Flash,” Zoom told her with a slight shake of his head. “The Flash is Keystone’s most active vigilante. He’s a kid, actually, raised well by the looks of it.”

“So who’s that copycat tarnishing your already bad reputation?” Iris demanded to know.

“I don’t know yet,” Zoom admitted, and even through the vibrations the detective could hear the frustration in his voice. “I’m about to patrol the city looking for him, so you can sleep with both eyes closed tonight, Iris.”

The woman shivered at the way he said her name. There was a heavy tone of possessiveness in his voice whenever he dropped the honorifics.

Iris never felt threatened by the thief regardless of his suggestive tone because he was never physically imposing to her. He usually kept a respectable distance between them, the closest he ever got being the backseat of her cruiser, and even then there was the partition cage offering the illusion of a barrier—Zoom could actually walk through doors.

“Will you keep me updated?” the detective heard herself ask.

While she wouldn’t fault the speedster for exacting some cold revenge on his copycat, Iris liked to think that he’d simply throw the deadly speedster in Iron Heights or wherever else the Feds kept meta prisoners.

“Of course Detective,” the thief replied cheerfully. “After all, I’m counting on you to clear my name!”

“Come again?” Iris demanded, surprised by his indirect request.

“You should be the leading officer on the case, Detective Page is dirty and shouldn’t be given any more honors,” Zoom said darkly.

Iris herself felt anger rise in her throat at the thought of her colleague and former mentor getting full control of the case.

Page was in the pockets of Senator McMillan, who everyone knew had hands in arms trafficking. Most of the meta criminals the senior detective pursued turned up dead one way or another. With members of a gang known for arm trafficking being the primary victims of the case, Page was the last cop to be trusted to close the case.

“You are Central City’s best, Iris West,” the Dark Speedster asserted, “therefore you’re the only one worthy of my gratitude.”

“Why not arrest them yourself?” the woman asked, intrigued. “Just drop the other speedster in Iron Heights. I know you have meta-cuff on you right now.”

“It’s not my job,” Zoom replied easily with another shrug. “I’m a thief, not a vigilante. Don’t worry, I’ll incapacitate them before bringing them to you. Also, I’d like to make the assumption that they’re male. His fists are bigger than mine.”

“So you investigate the crime scenes and you plan on stopping the criminal, but you claim that you’re not a vigilante?” Iris pointed out, incredulous.

“I’m only doing all this work to impress you, naturally,” the speedster shamelessly admitted, Iris could even see the grin on his vibrating face.

“Even if I were impressed, I don’t date people I should be putting behind bars,” West countered, not quite sure why she was indulging his flirtatious behavior tonight. 

This was definitely one of their longest exchanges of late. Was she imagining the change of the atmosphere just now?

“I would never ask you to ruin your own reputation by dating me, Iris,” he said, his voice dropping half an octave. “I don’t need anything official, don't worry.”

Wow, he was coming out strong tonight, and Iris’ treacherous body was loving it.

She needed to get laid soon. Preferably by goody two-shoes Barry Allen, so she could purge herself from the sinful temptation that was Zoom.

“If only,” she lamented quietly, knowing that the chances of her having a relationship with the CSI in the near future were thin.

“I’m serious, Iris,” the Dark Speedster said, misinterpreting her words. “You’ll find that I’m a very...accommodation lover.”

Iris refused to consider how discreet a speedster indeed could be, or to think about the applications of his vibrating abilities in bed…

“Go away before I handcuff you for lewd behavior,” she told the thief, trying to sound stern.

Zoom’s laugh—which would be an ugly sound to people not used to hearing it—told her that she failed.

“Safe ride home Detective. I’ll see you soon,” he said before vanishing in the night, leaving in a trail of golden lightning and a gush of air behind.

It was fortunate that Iris kept her hair pinned in a low bun. She imagined that the speedster was a running disaster for the hairstyles of people on his way.


	3. Part 1_Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris decides to take matters into her hands

When three days passed and Iris didn’t hear from Zoom, she tried to stomp down her concern. He was a criminal, she shouldn’t care about his well being.

What she cared about was the fact that more gang members were turning up dead, and that everyone thought that Zoom was to blame for the murders.

Someone was framing the thief. Why? What did they have to gain from it? Why the Hammers?

“West!” Detective Page bellowed from across the reception room of the precinct.

Iris let out a frustrated exhale before turning around to greet the man who had taught her half of everything she knew about being an ‘above average’ detective.

“Eric,” she said amiably despite the scowl he gave her. “Need an extra hand on the Hammers massacre case?”

“What I need is for you to drag Allen out of his parents’ basement, or wherever he’s hiding to play his stupid video games!” the older detective demanded. “I will not shoot myself in the foot trying to solve this case using the work of some interns, you hear me?”

“What are you talking about?” West asked, angry at Page’s tone but also utterly confused by his words.

“Allen’s been a no-show for three days!” the older man finally explained, pointing at the general direction of the CSI’s lab upstairs. “He called in sick the other day and has been ‘coordinating’ evidence processing from home through his interns. The nerves of this boy!”

Iris blinked at the dirty cop.

This was definitely the first time she’d heard of Allen calling in sick. The man—not boy—was always late, but never missed to show at work.

Iris hadn’t talked to him since that first scene at the waterfront because she wasn’t on the case anymore, but Barry was still the lead crime scene investigator on it.

Was he okay?

Though they’d never talked to each other before joining CCPD, Barry and Iris knew each other from high school. West had known his name because Allen was the perfect GPA student, nicknamed ‘the king of the nerds’.

Iris had graduated with perfect attendance, and although back then Allen was already legendary for his tardiness, he’d never skipped a day of school—which was commendable, now that she thought about it, as he most definitely got bullied by some of the jocks who seemed to like ‘messing with him’ now and then.

To the detective's knowledge, the brilliant CSI had never taken a day off in the five years he'd worked for CCPD.

Should she drop by his place? She knew the address but had never been there. Despite Page’s assumption, Barry didn’t live with his parents, who travelled a lot—Barry had once mentioned Atlantis once—so if he indeed was sick, Iris didn’t know how well he could take care of himself.

“West!” Page’s voice brought her back to reality, snapping his fingers at him.

“Yeah, I’ll check on him tonight,” she promised with a nod. “You’re right, this case requires our best CSI. It’s bad enough that we’re dealing with a serial killer, but a speedster?"

“Speaking of,” Page said, eyeing Iris critically. “I used to ignore the rumors claiming that you fraternize with Zoom…”

“I've never 'fraternized' with Zoom,” the younger detective corrected firmly. “He taunts me and Lawton every time we responded to 211s at the private labs. I still don’t know why we bother trying to catch him.”

“Are you kidding me, West? He’s a murderer!” Page exclaimed!

Iris sighed quietly.

“Come on Page, you don’t believe that, none of us _above average detectives_ do,” she chanced as she looked her mentor in the eye. “The MO of this serial killer is so different from Zoom’s that even CCPN is questioning his identity—”

“No one takes that gossip rag seriously,” the corrupt officer objected. “They’d write anything to stay relevant in this digital age.”

“I’d say that their investigative reporters are doing a better job at presenting the case than our Communication Officer—seriously Eric, Michaels? She spends more time on her personal social platforms than reading reports.”

“Think you could do better, West?” Page challenged her as he crossed his arms and glared at her.

Iris was vaguely aware that the two of them were being observed by everyone in the room, but she wasn’t intimidated. In fact, she was sick of backing away from confronting Page out of respect for his seniority. He wasn't better than her, not anymore.

Though all the victims so far were killers themselves, West was outraged that a meta-human was terrorizing the people of _her_ city. Promotion or not, she was determined to cuff that copycat sooner rather than later.

“Matter of fact, Page, I know that I can do a better job,” she claimed evenly with a provoking tilt of her head.

“What are you—” the older man started, but she shut him up by stepping into his personal space.

“The CSI you insist on calling a boy, Allen? He’s the _best_ at what he does,” she pointed out. “I bet that he and his interns have given you enough evidence to work out a lead on the true identity of our serial. But you don’t want to _ work _ anything out, do you? You think it’s a waste of your time. So pass me the case, let me put in the work, and I’ll let you get all the credits for catching that super sonic bastard.”

Page’s face had turned an impressive shade of red, he was furious but speechless.

“You know what, I’ll check on your lead CSI right now,” West decided. 

She stepped aside and walked to her desk without giving Page the time to reply, and after locking her drawers and switching her log from ‘office’ to ‘patrol’ she marched out of the precinct.

Once she was in her car, the young detective took a few deep breaths to calm down.

This was it. She’d talked big in public, so she better deliver now. If there was a chance for her to get a promotion in the near future, her speech had set things in motion.

Hopefully Barry _did_ have clues on who the speedster was, because without Zoom reporting back to her she had no way of knowing. 


	4. Part 1_Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris visits Barry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter almost got too long, oops. This is the last chapter of Part 1, meaning we're switching POVs next chapter. 
> 
> How many parts are there, you ask? I have no idea 🙃

Allen’s place was nicer than hers, that was for sure.

Iris knew that, unlike her father who was a Jazz singer, Barry’s parents were well-off. They probably could get him an even more luxurious apartment in District 1, but Barry struck her as the type of person who wanted to make a name for himself, if only to prove to the world that he wasn’t the helpless nerd everyone thought he was.

Thanks to her badge, West made it to Allen’s apartment door easily, the building receptionist not even warning Barry about the visit. She pressed the apartment doorbell and waited for the CSI to open the door, putting some distance between her and the door in case he coughed a lot.

Iris blinked repeatedly when a pretty brunette appeared from behind the door.

“Oh, sorry, I think I got the wrong—” she started apologizing, but the woman stopped her.

“Detective West, right?” she stated more than asked as she gave her a discreet once over while stepping in front of the door, closing it half-way.

Iris herself took the time to observe who she believed was Barry’s girlfriend, because she knew that the CSI didn't have a sister or female cousin in Central City.

Long, wavy mouse hair, warm brown eyes, possibly taller than Iris, though it was difficult to tell as both of them were in heels. Wow.

No wonder Barry had never made a move on her, he already had someone.

There was something about the woman that made Iris think that she was slightly older than her and Barry. Maybe it was her eyes, which looked wiser and more stern than the rest of her glamorous outfit—Iris had coveted those designer heels a few months back, and those earrings were not cheap—suggested.

“Yes,” Iris confirmed as she stood a little taller. “I’m here to see Barry. He called in sick but I really need to go over a few things about an on-going case.”

The stranger was about to say something when another stranger’s voice—male—resonated behind her and the half closed door.

“Is it Ronnie or the pizza guy? Or Ronnie with take-out, I’m not picky at this...Woah!”

It was a very young-looking man, with the prettiest hair Iris had ever seen on a male. He looked like a biker, what with the custom-made leather jacket and tight denim pants with hiker boots he had on.

“You’re Detective West,” the man said, staring at her in awe.

“The one and only,” she confirmed again, this time allowing her lips to stretch into a smile.

Were these two Barry’s friends, or friend and girlfriend? Or boyfriend and friend. In any case, Iris was flattered that they’d both heard enough about her from him to the point of recognizing her on sight.

“Wait, what are you doing here?” the newcomer asked. “Was she supposed to come here?” he then asked his friend.

“She might as well, the situation is getting well over our heads,” the brunette asserted with a shrug before she pushed past him back into the apartment, leaving the door wide open.

“Err, okay,” the young man said over his shoulder before pasting a fake smile to face Iris again. “Can you give me a moment? Just need to confirm with Barry that it’s okay to let you in,” he added in a rush before closing the door on the detective.

“I guess,” West whispered with a frown, which disappeared quickly when the door whipped back open in front of none other than Barry Allen himself.

Or was it truly Barry Allen? Iris’ eyes and brain were in conflict over the fact.

The Barry Allen she knew was a lanky young man with hair perpetually sleeked in gel, who always dressed primly in suits and bowties. His most beautiful features were his big innocent green eyes, always framed by thick square glasses.

The Barry Allen in front of her wasn’t lanky. He was tall and well built, his lean muscles on display thanks to a fitting short-sleeved t-shirt and denim pants very similar to that of the man with the pretty hair.

Not that Barry’s short hair wasn’t pretty, though _sexy_ was a more apt adjective, the way it was enticingly tousled, free of gel, a few wild strands falling over his eyes.

And those eyes. Still green, still innocent what with the way they were staring at her widely, but without the glasses to hide Barry’s high cheekbones Iris found them even more beautiful than before, which she would have thought impossible a minute ago.

“Iris?” he said with the lips the detective was usually too professional to look at while on duty.

That brought the detective out of her daze. Allen never called her by first name. He always addressed her as ‘Detective’ or ‘Detective West,’ or even ‘Ma’am.’

“I mean, Detective West, hi! What are you doing here?” the CSI quickly amended as he shuffled outside, not quite closing the door behind him but keeping a hand on the handle.

Iris forced herself to look him in the eyes because the part of her who had a crush on her colleague couldn’t be trusted with the sight of his bare feet or the slightly bulging biceps on the arm stretched towards the door.

“You called in sick,” the cop was able to say evenly, “Page isn’t happy about that.”

Barry blinked, and Iris convinced herself that she imagined the disappointment in his eyes and in the droop of is shoulders.

“Right, yes, of course,” he stuttered a bit as he rubbed the back of his neck with his free arm, his gaze down in embarrassment. “It was actually allergies, you see, I thought it was a cold and didn’t want to pass it on—Detective?”

“Yes!” Iris replied as her gaze snapped back to his eyes after wandering along his upper body.

She hoped that her blush wasn’t visible. How embarrassing, getting caught ogling someone whose physical build had never mattered in her eyes before. She wasn’t that shallow!

“I thought that Chris and Patty—my interns—could keep things going until I got back,” he explained apologetically. “Why are you the one here? You’re not on the case—which is a shame, I mean a mistake, you were on the first crime scene so you should’ve been able to join Page’s team to follow up on the case…”

“Well I’m unofficially taking over,” West asserted, the familiar rambling of the CSI helping her return into her detective mode. “Page is expecting the case to solve itself, but you and I know that there’s a lot to uncover before we can catch the right suspect. I know that it’s not Zoom, though I can’t prove that. Yet.”

There Allen was again, staring at her with that mysterious unflinching gaze. Iris blinked slowly to resist looking away.

“I might have finally obtained a lead on this new speedster, actually,” the CSI claimed quietly. “I just sent the encrypted file to Patty back at the precinct, if you'd like to check it out."

“Oh,” Iris reacted, slightly put off that Allen was clearly not going to invite her into his apartment.

Which was fair, he already had guests, _friends_, who were more important to him than the Detective he’d worked with on and off for the past five years. She understood.

She was still disappointed.

“Anything I need to know to be able to understand the data Spivot will present me?” Iris questioned him mildly. “She always talks to me as if I’m supposed to know all of the science.”

“It’s the compiled data from all the ammeters used to measure atmospheric currents at various crime scenes,” Allen explained, and Iris smiled when he lifted two long fingers to his face only to realize that his glasses were missing.

“I re-calibrated all of the ammeters used on the scenes of the murders and Zoom’s robberies so that I could get an average of the current generated at both types of crimes. It took me a while to eliminate confounding variables, but now—”

“You can show that the lightning at the scenes of the murders and Zoom’s lightning at the labs are different!” West completed the sentence as she caught on, thrilled at the news.

“Also, the dark matter detectors that we thought were broken actually aren’t,” Barry added after confirming her guess with a series of quick nods. “They work just fine, I had a mechanical engineer double-check. This means...”

“That this killer, this copycat speedster isn’t even a meta?” Iris concluded, though she was baffled by that fact. “How come he has powers then?”

“I’m still trying to figure it out,” Allen informed her. “I’m asking around, I know a few bioengineers, they can tell me if it’s possible for regular humans to develop powers without their DNA showing the typical meta-gene caused by exposure to dark matter.”

“As if normal criminals and meta-humans criminals weren’t enough to deal with,” Iris grumbled as she brought a hand to massage her temple. 

Iris loved her hometown, but really, Central City was starting to rival Gotham with the number of freak cases. Not that she thought that meta-humans were freaks by nature, like most cops did. It was the creepy criminal behaviors that stood out to her.

“Okay, thank you Barry. Great job as always,” she complimented the CSI with a sincere smile. “I knew that you’d figure it out. Knowing for sure that this isn’t Zoom helps a lot.”

“It does?” Allen asked, and the detective couldn’t tell whether or not he was skeptical about her confidence.

“Well, I mean, you know that Floyd and I sometimes get Zoom’s unexpected visits, right?” she reminded him. “He’s been away the past few days, but I think that’s because he knows that everyone suspects him to be a killer. Now that we have orders to shoot him on sight with real guns, I don’t blame him for laying low.”

“Right,” Barry acknowledged, though he did look skeptical about her reasoning this time.

“He himself is impossible to find, but I’ll see if I can’t get a hold on one of his associates,” Iris decided out loud. “I know it’s against protocol, but desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“What do you mean?” the CSI inquired, curious but thankfully nothing indicated that he was disapproving of her plan to contact thieves.

“We need to catch that copycat before more people get killed,” she asserted. “I swore an oath to help keep the city safe, and right now with that murderous speedster on the loose Central City is anything but safe. For now the victims are criminals themselves, but who says that this guy won’t turn against civilians? None of us could stop him if he did. Only another speedster can.”

“With the right equipment anyone can stop a speedster,” Allen mumbled.

“Wait, really? There are devices capable of stopping speedsters?” Iris questioned him, startling him.

“What? No, I mean yes,” he stuttered a bit, his eyes directed over Iris’ head for once. “I’m sure S.T.A.R. Labs or Mercury Labs or even Tannhauser Industries are working on something as we speak. Their researchers seem to have the best understanding of Zoom’s powers.”

“Which is probably why he steals so much from them,” West guessed. “Good to know. Well, I’ll let you go back to your friends, Allen. Thanks for the update.”

“Of course, Detective,” he replied with a small smile and his intense stare.

His eyes were so much prettier without the glasses, it was crazy. He had the longest eyelashes!

“I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” Iris said as she walked away, determined to put as much distance as possible between her and her crush looking all domestic.

“Have a good day!” she heard him reply before she reached the elevator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's ready for Team F̶l̶a̶s̶h̶ Zoom in action next chapter?


	5. Part 2: Barry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Zoom return to HQ without what they were looking for, but find something that might lead them to the copycat after all.

“They shoot laser beams! These drones shoot fucking laser beams!” Reverb shouted in the collective com channel, the sound of an explosion backing up his claim.

“So what? Blast them,” Black Siren instructed calmly on her side. “Zoom, I’m not seeing that disc anywhere here at S.T.A.R. Labs.”

“Cait told you Wells had nothing, you should've listened," Crystal Frost commented. "Nothing at Tannhauser either, well nothing apart the fact that Cait’s mother needs to redecorate, for real.”

“Please don't break anything in Lower Level 3, I designed the vault,” Deathstorm chimed in. “Hey, speed-less speedster, no disc at Palmer Tech. That other guy probably had it custom made, just like whatever he took to get super speed in the first place.”

“What a loser,” Reverb said, his voice much more level than it had been a moment ago. “Couldn’t find his own gift, so he stole yours? That’s pathetic. And why is no one else freaking out about these murderous drones?”

“It’s L-Corp, I’d be worried if you hadn’t encountered some lethal booby trap,” Black Siren replied. “Come get me by the way, I triggered an alarm. I don’t feel like breaking anything tonight.”

“Be right there babe,” Reverb announced before he switched off his com to use a breach.

Barry sighed as he leaned back into his chair at the monitoring console, all the way back at HQ.

As he’d suspected, they’d have to infiltrate Mercury Labs too. It was very likely that Dr. McGee’s group had, if not the disc itself, a device similar enough that Cisco and him could reverse-engineer and turn into the syphoning disc the copycat speedster had used to steal his speed.

The problem with Mercury Labs was that the main research facility was very well equipped to deal with meta-human threats. All of the guards were ex-military, armed with stun guns and carrying meta-cuffs. The floors containing the most sensitive research projects were rigged with traps, all triggering a sleep gas that only affected meta-humans. 

Stealing from Mercury Labs had always been a solo mission for Zoom, whose speed allowed him to go in and out of the building without being seen and before the sleep gas could reach his lungs.

If rumors were to be believed, McGee was coming up with a meta-dampening signal, which she planned on broadcasting in the entire building. Barry had to look for the syphon disc before it happened.

Unfortunately, this was Barry’s fifth day without his speed. He had started to feel the Speed Force again, but it still felt far away from his reach.

He was lucky to have survived his confrontation with the killing speedster, who had been faster than him. After beating him, the new criminal had planted a strange disc to his jugular, and Zoom's speed and energy had been sucked dry in record time. The serial killer would definitely have added Barry to his list of victims had Cisco, Laurel and Caitlin not come to his rescue that night.

Though getting his speed sucked out of his body had been a traumatizing experience, it had showed Barry that the meta-human thieves he worked with were truly his friends: they'd risked their lives fighting a man who was even faster than him.

Considering that Barry had fought and defeated all of his teammates before—except Reverb, who had immediately called for a truce the moment he’d realized that his powers were super speed and fast healing—he had often thought that they only stuck with him to benefit from his powers, not because they cared about him. He'd feared that they'd double-cross him the minute it would be convenient for them to do so in order to return to their less organized lifestyle of crime.

But before he'd lost consciousness that night, Zoom had seen Reverb and Siren engage the copycat speedster while Frost removed the disc from him. Then, when Barry had woken up in his apartment, Cisco and Caitlin had nursed him back to health. Even Laurel, Martin and Ronnie, with their busier schedules, had stopped by to check on him a few times.

Of course, with the exception of the bioengineer, they all pretended like their intervention was no big deal. Cisco had suggested that Barry pay them a round of drinks the next time they all went clubbing together—which they never did.

The beep announcing an authorized arrival into the building brought Barry back to the present, and he spun his chair around the secure entrance of his secret lab as Reverb and Black Siren stepped out of a breach.

“There’s a burned smell,” Barry joked as he saw the breacher scowl at the damaged sleeve of his jacket.

“Har har, very funny,” Reverb—or rather Cisco, since he’d taken off his goggles—reacted as he placed his special glasses on their charging stand in his corner of the room.

“Barry look at that,” Laurel, who’d already removed her mask, coat and gloves, removed a sim card from her smartwatch and plugged it in the main console.

The projected medical reports and diagrams looked familiar to the CSI: those were vitals signs and physical performance readouts of a speedster. Only, they weren’t his.

“Jesse Wells? As in Harrison Wells’ daughter?” Barry questioned after he read the name on the file.

“I thought she was studying abroad?” Cisco chimed in.

“That was clearly a cover story to explain her disappearance,” Laurel speculated. “Look at the dates, though.”

Barry had looked, and he didn’t like the implications of those dates.

The charts had started a year ago, and had been updated every single day until two March 2018, two months ago.

Then there had been an update, just vital signs—showing very normal, human values—six days ago. 

The day before the first murders by the copycat.

“He’s stolen Jesse Wells’ speed too,” Barry concluded. 

“We need to talk to Dr. Wells,” Cisco suggested with a knowing look at him.

Another beep resonated, and this time the entrance door slid open, Caitlin, Dr. Stein and Ronnie walking through.

“Why are you making those faces?” the latter asked before noticing the screens. “What’s that?”

“The medical records and physical assessments of a speedster,” Caitlin answered right away, her eyes darting across the screens. “Or a former speedster, the latest report suggests that...Jesse Wells isn’t a speedster anymore. Jesse? Harrison’s daughter?” 

“Our boss’ daughter is a speedster,” Ronnie said, disbelief in his voice. “Well, I’m glad we’ve never stolen from S.T.A.R. Labs, until recently she could’ve been there all along.”

“And where is Miss Wells presently?” Martin asked.

“No idea, but I know just the person who can ask her father,” Barry announced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I promised a bit of action, but including Zoom and the copycat's face-off would've made this chapter too long. More action to come in later chapters!


	6. Part 2_Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zoom recruits Iris for the Mercury Labs heist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mildly corny flirtatious lines ahead.

“I heard you’ve been looking for me,” Barry said, elated to be able to vibrate his vocal cords again.

His speed had returned in the morning after finding out about Jesse Wells. Caitlin had strictly forbidden him to strain himself until he could get a full day of speed training during the weekend to make sure his stats were the same as before, but he'd decided that visiting Iris before she went home that evening was an acceptable expenditure of energy.

“Zoom,” the detective said, the dim lights of the parking lot showing her beautiful eyes widening as she took him in.

Then they narrowed down while she crossed her arms and leaned against her car.

“And where have you been?” she demanded with a deep frown. “You were supposed to update me on the identity of that copycat!”

“I didn’t find out who he is, but I know that he’s not a meta,” he told her for the second time.

“Yeah, that’s old news to me,” she said smugly, “our lead CSI figured that out the other day. Give me something better, but don’t feel bad if you can’t. Barry Allen is a genius.”

Barry’s chest swelled with happiness at hearing the pride in her voice when she talked about him. 

“What would you like to know? We’re not making much progress identifying this killer, to be honest,” he admitted.

“‘We’, as in you and your meta-human associates?” she asked with a tilt of her head. “How come the lot of you can’t catch _one_ powered individual? He should be sorely outmatched.”

“Well, he’s faster than me, and he's been off our radar ever since—” Barry started but stopped himself before telling her about his confrontation with _ Bootleg_—yup, that’s what Reverb had nicknamed the other speedster.

“Oh, I do have a question for you thieves,” the detective announced. “Do you think one of the high tech labs you keep robbing has a device that could be used to steal a speedster’s speed?”

Barry regretted a little bit that slip of his tongue. He’d been a bit in a daze, seeing the woman he liked at the door of his humble abode.

But with Mercury Labs going through the installation of the meta-dampening signal in their main research facility, Barry had decided to get Iris onboard with their project to break into the high security place.

“Hey, it’s not to use it on you,” the cop assured, misinterpreting his silence. “Well, not _now_. But we really need to stop this guy. The Hammers have been more violent lately, and innocent people are starting to die. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to stop that killer, including working with you and your associates.”

“I don’t think your superiors would appreciate you working with me or my ‘associates’ as you call them,” Zoom pointed out.

“My superiors won’t care for my methods as long as I close this case,” Iris informed him with a shrug. “The Hammers are amongst the main arms dealers in Central City, so their group being destabilized is bad even for that crook of Page. They Hammers have become too messy.”

That was true. Reverb and Frost had dealt with trigger-happy buyers earlier this week when trying to sell pieces of tech on the black market. A little research had told the group that the unregistered firearms used against them came from the Hammers.

“Zoom, come on, this whole situation is worst for _you_,” Iris argued, unaware that he didn’t need convincing. “You’re now public enemy number one because of this guy, and it’s only a question of time before they put a bounty on your head.”

“If I let you work with us, you’ll have to follow my team’s rules,” he warned her, though he didn’t expect her to fully agree with this condition.

“Can’t promise that,” the detective indeed replied. “I don’t mind you stealing from the rich or from well-funded labs, but I’ll handcuff any of you who will harm innocents or vandalize public property in front of me.”

“Sounds fair,” Barry acknowledged, making a mental note to notify Frost and Black Siren.

“Also, I’ll defer to you for specifics, but this is _ my _ mission,” Iris asserted with a thumb pointed at her chest. “We find a weapon or device to neutralize the copycat, figure out his identity, and arrest him. After that we’re back to being enemies.”

“I wouldn’t call us _ enemies _ ,” Zoom said playfully. “We’ve never fought each other. In fact I think I’ve been upfront expressing my desire to be the _ opposite _ of your enemy.”

“Oh yeah, before I forget, flirting is off-limits too,” the detective declared to Barry’s horror.

“You can’t be serious,” he complained as he took an involuntary step towards her.

“I only let you get away with it because we _ are _ enemies, speedster,” Iris argued as she waved a hand between them. “But working with you means that we’ll share the same space and depend on each other to stay safe. I’m sure that even you thieves have some rules about fraternization.”

They didn’t. Caitlin and Ronnie were married—they’d been lovers way before he became Deathstorm—and Laurel and Cisco were dating on and off. If Professor Stein hadn't been there Barry would've felt like a fifth wheel.

“We thieves only care about acquiring our targets,” he admitted. “Our rules only exist to optimize our ability to complete missions, not to control our social lives.”

“Well, I’m not a thief,” Detective West reminded him, “so I will impose myself that fraternization rule. Don’t make me punch you for violating it.”

“All I’m hearing is that you’re afraid of falling for me,” Barry pointed out as he took a few more steps towards the woman he’d wanted for years.

He stopped just shy of arm length distance from her when she started laughing.

It took him some time to stop admiring the sound of her laughter and realize that she was laughing _ at him _.

“Who said anything about falling for you?” she said once she calmed down. “I don’t even know if you’re my type underneath that mask. Like you’ve proposed yourself, the only relationship we could ever have would be purely physical.”

“I wouldn’t be the best thief of Central City if I didn’t try to steal your heart knowing that it’s off-limits,” Zoom teased, and was rewarded with a cute if undignified snort from Iris.

“You’re unbelievable,” she commented before leaning away from her car door. “When should I expect you to find out if the anti-speedster device actually exist?”

“A research group from Mercury Labs most definitely has one,” he told her. “We should check out their main facility before my speed is rendered obsolete by their new meta-proof security system.”

“Huh,” the cop reacted. “I wish I could just request Dr. McGee to lend us that expensive device to catch the killer, but she isn’t as generous as Dr. Wells and would definitely be suspicious of me knowing about such a secret project.”

“Speaking of Dr. Wells,” Barry said, guessing that now was the time to mention the physicist’s daughter. “His daughter Jesse is a speedster too.”

“Okay,” Iris acknowledged hesitantly. “We’ve established that your copycat is a man though, haven’t we?”

“I’m not suspecting Jesse Wells to be the killer,” Zoom amended, “I suspect that the killer kidnapped Miss Wells. Maybe even studied her, that could be how he was able to get super-speed without being a meta himself.”

“Has Dr. Wells reported his daughter missing?” the detective naturally asked.

“No, and I suspect that he’s been instructed not to,” the disguised CSI answered. “I don’t have solid evidence to back up my hypothesis, but I figured that your badge could get you more answers, though you should definitely be discreet about your search for Jesse Wells.”

Iris stared at him, which he found odd, since there was no way that she could identify him even from this close.

“What?” he asked.

“You’re a scientist, as I suspected,” the detective replied.

Barry knew that, she’d said so in front of him as a colleague, but he was intrigued by what had prompted her statement.

“You said ‘evidence to back up my hypothesis’ instead of ‘proof to back up my theory’,” Iris pointed out as if she’d read his mind. “The only other people I’ve heard say that are the nerds of our CSI department.”

“Should I take it that you don’t like nerds?” Barry asked with genuine curiosity.

He’d always thought that Iris was friendly, if not a friend, to him. But maybe she only tolerated him because he was objectively the best CSI tech at CCPD.

“Nerds are fine,” the detective deliberated as she opened her door to slide behind the wheel. “In fact, my crush is the cutest nerd I know,” she added after closing her door.

Barry almost stopped vibrating out of shock. Iris had a crush? That crush was a nerd? 

_ The cutest nerd that _ she knew… Patty? Iris preferred women? Well, she was opened to a physical relationship with him, so she was bisexual?

“I’ll try to get in touch with Dr. Wells tomorrow—discreetly—and let you know whether your hypothesis is supported or not,” the detective told him over her lowered window, unaware of his internal crisis. “When should we meet to layout our plan on stealing that device?”

“This weekend would be ideal,” Zoom suggested as he remembered to pull out a burn phone from a pocket of his suit. “Here,” he said as he extended it to her.

“There goes my spotless career,” Iris drawled as she took the phone and unceremoniously dropped it on the passenger seat. “Or maybe I can still save it by arresting you once this is all over,” she added with a cheshire smile.

“Sorry, having you cuff me isn’t a fantasy of mine,” Barry couldn’t help joking before he sped away.


	7. Part 2_Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interlude to the mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No plot at all in this one, just a lot of fake science and Barry admiring Iris' beauty.

“I don’t see why I have to sit this one out,” Frost argued in her echoing voice. “I still could drive the van.”

“Iris saw Caitlin’s face,” Barry told her as he checked the GPS signal on the burn phone he gave the detective. “She’d recognize you right away.”

“Then give me a mask,” the ice meta-human suggested as she turned to Cisco.

“We will need Caitlin in case we get injured,” Barry added without looking up from the screen of his tablet before the engineer could say anything. “Ronnie is staying too, let’s not argue about it, okay?”

“Fine with me,” Ronnie acquiesced. 

“You’re ditching the team’s two best fighters just to protect your stupid identity!” Frost complained.

“I’m protecting _everyone’s_ identity,” the team leader corrected. “Also, Iris is a better fighter than all of us combined without powers. And she’s as good of a shot as those military-trained guards.”

“Good to know that my newly _ repaired _ stun gun is in good hands,” Cisco commented with a pointed look at Frost, who rolled her eyes in reply. 

The ice meta-human had damaged Cisco’s favorite toy during a training session.

“Are we sure that Detective West won’t double-cross us?” Professor Stein asked as he looked up from the blueprints of Mercury Labs’ main research facility. “After all, we are very famous meta-human criminals. The felonies of this Bootleg fellow involve other criminals, but we have enraged the elite of Central City with our heists.”

“Iris doesn’t care about Central City’s one percent,” Barry informed the group. “Guys, she can be trusted, I promise.”

“You interact with her more as a CSI than a thief, Allen,” Laurel pointed out. “Not only is your perception of her skewed by your professional relationship, but you have a crush on her the size of a cruise ship.”

Barry was about to defend himself for the fifth time in the last hour when a shrill alarm resonated from the main console.

“Fuck,” Cisco swore as he took a seat by the station and furiously swiped at a few screen. “Well, we’re screwed.”

“Don’t tell me that this is what I think this is,” Barry pleaded, hoping against hope that his fear wasn’t justified.

“The whole northern research facility at Mercury is emitting a meta-dampening signal,” the engineer confirmed. “I can’t breach us inside.”

“Can’t we just shut down the generator that powers the signal?” Barry asked.

“Mercury has a powerful back-up generator,” Martin pointed out. “A nuclear one, so it can’t be shut down until the main power is restored. I was there when they inaugurated it.”

“I remember reading about it,” Ronnie commented as he approached Stein’s monitor. “May I?”

Barry got up from his seat to check what the structural engineer was looking for.

“There,” the youngest half of Deathstorm said as he projected blueprints on the main screen of the room. “I always thought that it was weird that they’d used nuclear energy for their back-up generator, because safety protocols wouldn’t allow it to power up immediately.”

“Are you saying that we have enough of a time window to operate?” Barry asked.

“Yes and no,” Ronnie answered as he turned to Cisco. “Hey, that’s an asynchronous closed circuit, isn’t it?”

“Yup, and if I’d worn a tie to that Mercury Labs interview six years ago, I would’ve been the one designing its sensors,” the youngest of the group lamented as he took over the monitor, typing and swiping quickly on its virtual keyboard. “But since I did not… It’s got a few exploitable flaws.”

“You have fifteen minutes to figure out how much time these flaws will give us,” Barry ordered his team mate just as his tablet vibrated, indicating that Iris was on the move towards their meeting spot. “Reverb and Siren, suit up, Detective West is on her way. The rest of you wait in the lounge until we leave after briefing Iris.”

Barry sped out to change into his own suit, went to a hidden corner of the junkyard he had instructed the detective to meet him, and sped close to her when she appeared a few minutes later.

“Ugh, I knew this would be annoying,” Iris said as she swiped a whole section of loose hair out of her face.

Barry used his speed to give himself time to admire the detective dressed in civilian clothes.

Whatever she was wearing was hidden underneath a pale trench coat, but he could see a black turtleneck peeking out of its collar. She was wearing boots with heels too high to be comfortable, but since working with Black Siren Barry knew that women’s shoes were not always what they appeared to be. Anyways, Iris’ messenger bag was bulky with a possible change of clothes and more comfortable shoes.

Iris’ hair, flowing freely in tight curls over her shoulders, was definitely a novel sight to him. Her hair was always straight and pinned in buns at work, and in high school she used to sport ponytails.

Speaking of high school, she seemed to have lost ten years, and it took a moment for Barry to realize that it was because she was wearing no makeup or significantly less than she did as a detective.

Ah, so that was how she managed to have most of the precinct call her ‘Ma’am’ or ‘Detective’ while Barry was always referred to as ‘boy’ or ‘kid’.

Even without her artificial mask of maturity, Iris looked stunning. She definitely looked less intimidating, even with the frown that was currently splitting her brow.

The speedster patrolled the perimeter of the junkyard to make sure that she hadn’t been followed, then returned to normal speed.

“Apologies for the hair,” he said with his vibrating voice as a form of greeting. “Did you spend a lot of time on it just for me?”

“What did I say about flirting?” she asked back with a scowl. “I trust that this literal junkyard isn’t your HQ. You guys certainly can afford better.”

“Of course we can,” Barry confirmed flippantly. “I’ll ask you to close your eyes as I run us to our actual HQ. Not that you could see where we’re going at Mach 2, but not looking will spare you some dizziness.”

“Mach 2? That’s twice the speed of sound, right? Is it safe for non-speedsters?” the detective questioned with wide eyes.

“Yes, it’s safe,” Barry answered with a nod. “And from now on, I’ll ask you to trust my judgement, Detective. It’s your mission, but I’m the leader of my team, so—”

“Twain,” she cut him off.

“What?”

“I can’t have you call me by my real name or my title while we’re breaking the law,” Iris pointed out. “So call me Twain until I put my badge back on.”

“Okay, yeah that’s a good idea,” the thief admitted as he walked closer to her. “We are used to using codename, so don’t worry, we won’t slip up, Twain.”

“Don’t hesitate to just yell ‘you’ if I don’t answer to that name, since I’m not used to fake names myself,” the detective said with a shrug.

“Got it,” the speedster acknowledged as he stopped a mere foot from her, making her crane her neck to look up at him. “Ready?”

“As ready as I can be,” she conceded, and a second later Barry had the pleasure to hold her in his arms for the very first time.


	8. Part 2_Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reverb, Twain and Zoom get into Mercury Labs without too much of a hassle.  
An anonymous contact of Zoom's passes on an important piece of info.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while! I haven't hit any writer's block yet, my laptop is just acting up.  
Hope you'll like this chapter, I jumped right into the action but I think it was easy to tell what Zoom's plan was to get into Mercury Labs.

“Reverb, you’re sure that this is the right truck?” Frost’s voice asked over the com.

“Yeah, the tracker on Zoom's remote just confirmed it, why doesn’t yours?” the breacher asked back.

“I have a positive ID, but heat scans are showing that it’s a freezer,” the ice meta informed.

“What?” both Reverb and Iris exclaimed.

Barry sighed internally.

He’d warned the team that storage containers were versatile, especially the ones used for research facilities such as Mercury Labs. Sometimes they transported glassware, like the time Reverb had inspected it and put a tracker on it, other times they transported temperature-sensitive specimens, like today.

“It’s alright, we’re only staying inside for seven minutes at most. Our suits are heat-proof _ and _ freeze-proof,” Zoom reminded.

“Mine isn’t,” the detective pointed out behind her face scarf.

The speedster refrained from making a joke on how Iris didn’t have to worry about the cold since she was super hot in her body suit and kevlar vest.

“I’ll keep you warm,” he told her, then at her sudden frown added “my body temperature actually runs high, this isn’t me trying to flirt.”

“Right,” the cop replied, her squinting eyes showing that she was clearly unconvinced.

Barry was ridiculously pleased that her disguise wasn’t hiding her gorgeous brown eyes. Her vest was hooded, but for now her hood was still down.

“Truck coming up at the corner of Lasalle and Fifth,” Frost warned them.

“Let’s go,” Zoom signaled as he switched on the remote controller he’d installed on the truck a couple minutes ago.

The large vehicle slowed down to a stop unexpectedly—for its driver—so that Reverb could open a breach inside the container.

“Coms off for forty five seconds,” the team leader announced before speeding into the portal.

He noted the positions of each cooling units and freezing boxes in the container, then sped back into the alley where Reverb and Iris were still waiting—not really, he’d been gone for half a second.

“Squeeze to the right as you step in,” Zoom instructed Reverb, then extended a hand towards Detective West.

“What?” she asked him with a raised eyebrow.

The remote beeped, announcing that its command was about to be cancelled.

“_That_ was a silent instruction to take my hand,” he let her know as he grabbed her forearm. “Our moves are calculated to the second and we can't always communicate verbally, so remember that, Twain,” he requested before he sped her into the container.

He dropped her behind a cooling unit, where the temperature was milder, before returning next to the portal and reaching out in anticipation for Reverb’s entrance.

Indeed, as the breacher stepped inside the freezer, the truck lurched back into drive, and without Zoom’s assistance Reverb would’ve slipped and possibly hit a freezing box.

“Thanks man,” the breacher said in a low voice, his breath fogging in the frigid air. “Ugh, my suit is freeze-proof but my damn skin isn’t,” he added as she tucked his hands under his armpits.

“Told you to wear real gloves,”Barry told him just as quietly while he wiggled his fully covered fingers in front of his teammate’s face.

“Go keep your paramour warm, mister,” Reverb talked back as he shuffled behind another cooling unit, switching his com back on on a private frequency—probably to talk to Siren.

“I heard that,” Iris mumbled as the speedster sat next to her. “And you still haven’t told me where Black Siren went.”

“You don’t have to concern yourself with her,” Zoom tried to reassure her.

“She’s the member of your team with the most infractions after Frost,” the cop hissed quietly, “and since Frost seems to be stuck in your lair, Siren _ is _ my biggest source of concern. She always breaks something wherever she goes.”

“First of all, it’s a secret lab, or headquarters, not a _ lair _,” Barry objected, “and secondly, Mercury Labs is a private company. Didn’t you say that you only cared about vandalism of public property?”

“Senator McMillan is a shareholder of this lab,” the detective informed him, “so I’m pretty sure some of my tax money goes into the maintenance of their facilities one way or another.”

Zoom’s smartwatch beeped, so he switched his com back on, ‘Twain’ following suit.

“Your exit point is still clear,” this time it was Dr. Stein guiding them, “but there will be only two crew members unloading the freezer instead of three, so one of you will have to find another disguise to pass by the dock’s cameras.”

“Damn it,” Reverb whispered, but since he’d said it with his com on they all heard him.

“I do know that this facility has a room for the custodial crew on the fifth floor, whether you will find a uniform there remains to be seen,” the professor told them.

“We do have extra tranquilizers,” Iris reminded them. “We could knock out the driver too and steal his clothes.”

“He’s scheduled to be out of the facility within fifteen minutes,” Zoom countered as he flipped his burner phone open and selected one of his speed-dial contacts. “We stick to the plan: let the crew unload one freezing box, knock the guys out and hide them behind the box, tell the driver that we’ve looked and all the equipment is in perfect condition so he can leave.”

“But if the surveillance crew sees two people going out to the loading docks and three people coming back in, they’ll send those guards our way,” Reverb pointed out.

“This better be an emergency, speedster,” a modified voice said in Barry’s ear after two rings.

“Can you hack into Mercury Labs’ surveillance system?” the speedster asked right away.

“Give me a sec,” the contact requested as shuffle noises resonated in the background. “What facility?”

“Northern, in Central City,” Zoom informed, ignoring the detective’s shocked stare.

“I’m in,” the voice alerted him after ten seconds. “What do you want me to do?”

“To loop thirty seconds of live feed in about...fifteen minutes,” the thief requested.

“I’ll have to log off now and log back in again, their system will detect me otherwise,” the voice warned.

“That’s fine, as long as you're back on when I give you the signal,” Barry told him. “Thanks.”

“My services aren’t free,” the contact reminded him before hanging up.

Barry flipped the phone closed, wondering if he'd have to steal from that new pompous jewelry on Infantino Street to pay for the favor. Those guys were overdue for a theft, anyway.

“You have a high-level hacker on speed dial,” Iris stated flatly. "Figures how you're able to get into some of those high security places in the first place."

Barry didn't correct her by saying that Reverb was the one doing the hacking on most missions.

“Was that who I thought it was?” Reverb asks more cheerfully as he crawled towards them and switched off his com. “Can I pick our next target if we’re going shopping soon? ASoIaF’s anniversary is next month and I want to get them something nice.”

“ASoIaF? Shopping?” the detective repeated with suspicion.

“_Focus_ guys,” Zoom ordered just as the truck slowed down for a stop that lasted a good twenty seconds.

“You just passed the gate’s check-in,” Martin informed them in the com. “Prepare to hide and neutralize targets in three minutes and thirty seconds.”

“Copy that,” Zoom and Reverb acknowledged.

Knocking out the two loaders went off without an itch, and the driver was all too eager to leave, though Barry suspected that he’d noticed that something was amiss.

“Do you want a system-wide loop or are you targeting a specific set of cameras?” Barry’s contact asked immediately after they picked up the phone the second time he called.

“The cameras of the loading docks by the eastern entrance,” Zoom instructed. “I’ll lose connection as soon as I walk inside the building, but you probably already knew that.”

“And here I thought that today was the day I could let you hang,” the voice joked.

“Name your price,” Zoom said with an internal wince, aware of Iris’ sudden glare on him from the other side of the room.

Being a high tech thief was even more expensive than Barry had thought when he’d been forced into the business.

His parents had been victims of a con artist, and at first he’d only wanted to get their money back.

Back then the speedster was still known as The Streak, and he was only using his powers discreetly to help the CCPD catch criminal metas.

By uncovering the con artist’s operation, the still naive Barry Allen had discovered the lucrative and informative black market of Central City. Along with the untraceable funds he got for his devastated parents, he gained the intel that the elite of Central City were emptying all their savings in anti-meta tech in the hope of catching and exploiting the most powerful super-powered people.

Barry let the whole world believe that Zoom and his associates sold the anti-meta tech they stole on the black market, but they didn’t: they kept the harmless pieces for themselves, but destroyed the harmful ones. Sometimes there was nothing they could do to prevent a product to hit the market, like the tranq gas that only worked on people with a meta-gene, or the more recent meta-dampening signal.

What the team did sell on the Black Market were the types of high tech unrelated to the control of meta-humans, as well as more mundane stolen goods like jewelry and works of art.

Barry had to keep money flowing into his off-shore bank accounts because he had to maintain his secret lab and keep updating the team’s equipment, plus he had to make sure that the innocent people indirectly affected by his criminal activities were compensated. In the rare occasions that he couldn’t solve a case as a CSI and that Laurel couldn’t use her legal power as an attorney to help the victims, Barry also felt compelled to make anonymous donations under the form of lottery wins. He also made anonymous donations to charities, which could be traced to aliases in case anyone went snooping.

He avoided asking for favors from other criminals because he didn’t know what the payments he made to them were used for. Most of the time, Barry’s speed dial contacts asked for crazy, rare items rather than regular money transfers.

“My price is Detective Iris West,” the voice told Zoom, “count down until I loop the feed? You want an empty corridor, right?”

Zoom froze. Thankfully, ‘Twain’ hadn't noticed because she was on the other side of the dock, gently propping one of the crew members against a wall.

“One hundred and twenty seconds after I hang up,” the speedster replied, “and I need you to elaborate on your price.”

“Get rid of the aforementioned target permanently,” the contact specified.

“I don’t steal lives,” Zoom reminded them coldly, “and neither do you, so either you give me the name of your commissioner _ and _ do me this favor for free, or I’ll expose the identity of your closest associate to SCPD.”

His contact remained quiet for half a minute, during which Barry felt his heart beat as fast as after running at Mach 20.

“So it’s true, _ she’s _ your weakness,” the voice said softly, awe filtering through the modifier.

“If you _touch_ Iris,” Barry warned between gritted teeth, making sure that his companions couldn’t hear him.

“Mayor Snart is the commissioner,” the contact offered, “but I think that she’s being black-mailed by Senator McMillan.”

“That dirty pig,” Zoom commented with a groan.

Barry had wanted to hurt the politician for a long time, but he didn't condone violence except in self-defense, and legally the man was untouchable.

He'd have to settle for a smaller fry.

“Hey man, we’re ready,” Reverb informed him from the door.

“One moment,” he requested over his shoulder before speaking back into the phone. “Who else knows about my A.H.?”

“Only me, I swear,” the modified voice answered, and the speedster was pleased that the contact sounded panicked in response to his anger. “And my suspicion was based on an innocent, stupid comment my closest associate made about a mission he did in your city. But the mark on Detective West is real, it seems that she’s pissed off a few people?”

“Checks out,” Barry confirmed as he turned towards his companions. “If you find me solid, court-admissible evidence that Detective Eric Page is dirty, I’ll send you what you need to make your associate’s suit a hundred percent freeze-proof.”

“Hey, how do you know that it’s not?” the voice asked.

“Because I saw that it's made of kevlar, and even the best kevlar money can buy isn’t fully cold-resistant,” he replied calmly, “but kevlar isn’t the only material you can make a suit out of.”

“The only reinforced tripolymer I’ve found only resists temperatures above twenty degrees fahrenheit,” the voice complained.

“Get me the evidence and I’ll get you a suit that will save his life from a blast from Crystal Frost,” Zoom promised as he signaled to Iris and Reverb while approaching the door. “One hundred and twenty seconds, starting...Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you guess who was the contact on speed dial?
> 
> A.H.:Achilles Heel = weakness (in spite of overall strength).
> 
> We'll be back to Iris' POV next chapter!
> 
> Minor but noteworthy edit: Mayor Snart, not Mayor Miller (random name).


	9. Part 3: Iris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting out of Mercury Labs isn't as straightforward as getting in was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep writing action scenes in the hope of getting better at it so if it's not all that great bear with me please

Using the freezing boxes on rolling carts to hide their fronts, Iris and Reverb passed by the cameras just fine. After leaving the boxes in a random cold storage room, they joined Zoom—who had run ahead of them, his presence hidden by the hacker he’d contacted—and made their way to the fourth level.

Resisting the urge to peer at Zoom to discern some of his facial features under his mask now that his face wasn't vibrating, Iris unstrapped both of her small stun guns—wishing that she could keep at least one after the mission—before the door opened, and unlike her two companions, she didn’t squeeze herself against the side of the elevator to avoid getting detected by the patrolling guards.

She stunned one before the other two even noticed that the elevator had opened, and stunned another who was grabbing his radio. She couldn’t tell which of the two thieves took out the third guard, but by the time the disguised cop finished inspecting their surroundings to make sure the area was clear of more guards, he was already down.

“All this time I’ve been wondering what high tech com system these guys use, and it’s neandertal radios?” Reverb commented as he stared at the one he pilfered from one of the guards.

“They’re effective within a small perimeter, _ and _ cheap,” the detective pointed out, “it’s a good choice.”

She didn't take a radio for herself but Zoom did.

“This way,” he instructed in a voice that sounded too low to be his natural one as he walked down the corridor.

Iris had been shown the blueprints of the facility, but she hadn’t had time to memorize them.

The sound of static startled the detective before she realized that it was the radio Reverb had taken. Zoom had likely switched off the one he'd stolen. 

“Team Epsilon, report,” someone said into the shared frequency.

Iris walked faster to catch up to the speedster, then frowned when she realized that he was somehow waiting for the locked door in front of him to open.

“Epsilon, report!” the voice on the radio insisted after a few seconds of silence.

More guards would be coming their way soon.

“We have keycards, remember?” she told Zoom as she took out the item in question from the loader’s uniform.

The detective had no intention of lingering in this place. This was only phase one of the whole mission. 

The speedster gripped her arm to prevent her from reaching the card reader.

“What are you doing?” she hissed as she heard faint sounds of footsteps. “More guards are coming!”

“The loaders we impersonated don’t have the clearance to open this door,” Reverb informed her casually as he glanced down at his watch.

“Then how were you planning on opening it?” Iris asked impatiently.

The sudden silence and darkness that fell over the whole building seemed to be her answer.

“T minus five minutes until the back-up generator takes over, let’s go,” Zoom announced with his familiar vibrating voice as he grabbed Reverb and Iris, and for a second the detective thought that there was an earthquake.

But she was the one vibrating like crazy, or at least Zoom was making her vibrate so fast that her arms looked blurry.

Then she was pulled towards the door, and only resisted the movement for half a heart-beat before remembering that the speedster could pass through physical barriers.

“That’s almost as cool as breaching, man,” Reverb commented, his voice vibrating, then Zoom let go of his arm once they were on the other side of the door.

The speedster tightened his grip on Iris when she tried to pull her arm away.

She remained immobile as she noticed than neither man had taken a step further into the windowless dark room.

With his now free hand, the speedster switched on a flashlight, and Iris saw that the place was clearly a lab. There were benches and various pieces of equipment, mostly scanners, but Zoom’s flashlight lingered on an ostentatious glass display case in one corner of the room.

There was a headless mannequin in the display, dressed in a Mercury Labs overalls. Across its chest was a weird x-shaped metallic harness, and in the middle of it was a disc slowly blinking a yellow light.

With the flashlight Iris saw Reverb press a button on the side of his goggles. They emitted a sweeping blue light, revealing laser trails criss-crossing two feet above the floor around the display case.

“How do these still work?” the detective questioned, shocked to see that the security system was still active despite the blackout.

“Powered by a battery,” the breacher answered as he and Zoom got closer to the case. “Whoever McGee pays for her security is smart, but they might still get fired after this.”

Zoom vibrated again and walked across the lasers, pausing in front of the display case before pulling out a small device from one of his suit’s pockets.

The device seemed to be a scanner, and he used a vibrating hand to get it through the glass and dragged the device up and down the whole mannequin, another blue light showing up.

Zoom then sped in and out of the display case, the scanning device in his hand replaced with the harness from the mannequin.

But, the mannequin still had its harness in the case. How? A hologram of the original?

“Can’t tell the difference, awesome,” Reverb commented as he gave his associate two thumbs up. “Let’s go!”

“You go pick up Siren, I’ll speed us out of here,” the speedster instructed Reverb.

“No smooching during the mission, kids!” the breacher joked before stepping into a portal.

“Black Siren is the one who cut off the power, I assume,” Iris guessed as she heard rather than saw Zoom turn on the radio cinched to his belt. 

Her eyes had adjusted to the low light in the room.

“Correct,” the thief confirmed with a nod as he removed and pocketed the blinking disc from the harness, then buckled the harness across his chest before vibrating back across the trapped floor towards her.

“Ready?” he asked her.

Before the detective could reply, the lights blinked back on, and a few beeps from various machines resonated in the room.

Just as she squinted her eyes to focus her sight, West felt the speedster’s hands grab her by the upper arms, and fought the urge to resist his push as he slowly walked her backward in the room, making them zigzag across the floor.

He settled them in the coat closet of the lab, located in the corner farthest from the entrance. A few seconds later Iris heard the sweeping sound of a sliding door. A few pairs of footsteps resonated, but the guards they belonged to probably couldn't go all the way into the room because of all the alarms.

"Clear in room 5G," someone announced on a radio.

"I'm telling you, they're probably on another floor," another voice speculated. "They took out Team Epsilon to draw us here. It's a diversion."

"We still have to follow protocol," the man who had spoken first argued. "Let's go, three more rooms to check."

The sound of steps faded, and the door slid shut.

Iris let out a shaky breath, belatedly aware that she'd held it.

Then her senses informed her that she was half cradled in Zoom's arms, mere inches separating their bodies. There wasn't room for them to stand shoulder to shoulder, but she still felt irritated by the forced proximity.

"That wasn't five minutes," she commented quietly in the space between her face and his stolen harness.

"Three minutes and fifty three seconds," he confirmed above her head, his fake croaky voice annoying from up close. "And we can't shut down the backup generator."

"So we're stuck here," the detective concluded with a sigh.

"Not necessarily," Zoom argued. "There's a custodial locker on the fifth floor, remember? Because of the blackout, research groups will have to assess any damage done in the facility. Someone will need a floor moped or broken glass picked up. No one will look twice at a pair of cleaners moving around the building."

"They will if they're covering their faces," West pointed out. "Or are you fine with me knowing your identity?"

"There are five million people in Central City," the speedster stated, "how will you identify me just by seeing my face? I don't have a single infraction to my name, you can't look me up in the system that easily."

"Fair point," Iris conceded. 

Yet, once they snuck to the big custodial room and found uniforms that actually fit, the thief hesitated removing his suit.

"I can look away the whole time, you know," the detective suggested as she felt panic at being discovered pressing into her skin.

They'd heard other people taking the stairs while they went from the fourth to the fifth floor. The footsteps had sounded too synchronized to be researchers or maintenance personnel. 

"We're a team now, I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize this mission," she promised. "That means that I'll respect your secret identity. Anyways, I'd rather remove your mask myself, when I seize a better opportunity."

"The only good opportunity for that would be if we completely took off our clothes for more fun activities," Zoom said seriously. 

It took a second for Iris to pick up on the innuendo, and then she threw the small size jumpsuit right into speedster's face.

"What did I say about flirting!?" She hissed, her volume still low so as not to draw attention to the room.

"That wasn't flirting," he objected, "that was me voicing my wishful thinking."

"Get changed, Dark Speedster," Iris commanded as she retrieved her disguise before she opened a locker door to shield herself from him as she changed.

The shrill of an alarm made her knock her hand into the door, and she cursed lowly.

"Seems like I won't need this after all," Zoom declared cheerfully as he dropped his jumpsuit. "You look great in that, by the way. Are you ever not beautiful?" He added and the cop didn't need to look at him to know that he was grinning like an idiot while checking her out.

She just sighed loudly, the sound barely audible against the alarm, then quickly prepared to leave. 

She tied her head scarf over her nose, and her bodysuit around her waist. 

The kevlar vest was too cumbersome to move with at this point, so she took cleaning tools from the many cabinets in the room to wipe off any trace of her DNA on it. She ten tucked it against the back of the locker, hoping it would remain hidden until they did a major cleaning a few weeks from now.

She slipped one stun gun in one of the deep pockets of the jumpsuit and tucked the other underneath a sleeve of her bodysuit. 

Zoom remained against the door for minutes, his ear alternating between the radio and the door to check on guards movement outside the room.

When he signaled that they could go, Iris prayed that they would exit the building undetected.

Her prayers went unanswered, as they faced off a group of guards the moment they stepped into the stairwell.

The element of surprise was fortunately on their side since Zoom demonstrated quick reflexes even without his powers: he sent the closest guard down with a kick, the bulky man dragging one of his teammates in his painful fall over the stairs.

That gave Iris the time to draw a stung gun and knock down the remaining standing guard.

"Up there!" The detective heard a voice shout from below and when she peeked over the rails, she saw a larger group of guards stomping their way up. 

"Damn it," she swore as she took out the other stun gun.

"As much as I'd love to admire your impeccable marksmanship," Zoom said as he pulled on her arm then grabbed one of the guns, "I propose we make a run for it."

Right, they were thieves, fleeing _was_ an option.

As a cop, standing her ground was Iris' default option.

In the end she still had to shoot at their pursuers because her short legs didn't allow her to move up the stairs as easily as Zoom.

She appreciates that he didn't slow down for her at any point during their ascent, instead he used his higher vantage point to shoot down the fastest guards—those were military-trained alright, they didn't seem to tire and some even deflected the shots—who were catching up to her.

The roof they exited to had so many solar panels that running across it was challenging because of the blinding light reflections and intense heat.

Maybe _ that _ was the real reason why Zoom only operated at night.

The cop felt a chill of dread despite the high temperature when she noted that the rooftop safety fence was too high for her to jump over.

She stared at Zoom, who grabbed his stolen radio.

"Reverb, come in," he ordered calmly once he established a connection. 

"Man, you good?" The breacher's voice returned after the statics.

Iris was surprised by the genuine concern in his voice. For some reason it made it sound familiar too.

"Will be if you can open a breach for us within the next few minutes," the speedster claimed as he looked back to the roof door he had jammed. "Can you even locate us? We're out on the roof."

"No, regular GPS signal is still scrambled up there and I can't pinpoint you with heat signature scans because of those solar panels," the other thief informed them.

"Okay then, hang on," Zoom declared as he stepped close to Iris without looking at her. "Do you trust me, Twain?"

Did she trust a thief unjustly suspected of being a serial killer, whose face she didn't know?

"Hey, guys?" Reverb called, his voice sounding even more alarmed. "I connected the radio to our com system to hear in all frequencies, and they're sending the cavalry! A truck full of legit troopers just parked outside."

"Why's the real military assisting a private lab?" The detective questioned worryingly as she heard the sound of the door being rammed from the inside.

She readied her stun gun and jogged as close to a pair of solar panels as possible without burning her skin to find cover.

"Cisco, where is the truck parked?" She heard Zoom ask just before the door was smashed open.

She didn't hear the reply, focusing on shooting as accurately as possible. She didn't miss a single target.

Zoom' aim was nowhere as good as hers but he took a few guards down too.

More of them were still coming out—seriously, what was McGee protecting so fiercely in this facility?—when the stun gun switched off to avoid a surcharge.

Iris tightly secured her scarf before charging into the closest guard, feigning a full body tackle only to grab and twist his arm to confiscate his large stun rifle.

She planted her feet firmly and twisted hard to ram the butt of the weapon into the man's jaw—the only part of his face not protected by a helmet or its padded straps—and threw a lateral kick into his middle to make him falter a few steps. This turned him into an unwilling human shield for the seconds that the cop needed to slip an arm through the strap of the stun rifle.

It had a sight, which made it so much easier for her to take down the remaining guards.

Zoom almost held his own against the guard he was engaged in a hand to hand combat—the other man had been disarmed—but when the military-trained guy pulled out a knife from his sleeve, Detective West knocked him down with a shot to the neck.

"If only Page could get us some of these," she lamented before throwing the rifle away and running along with Zoom to another side of the roof.

"Reverb, open the breach in fifteen seconds," he ordered, his voice uneven and not disguised this time, probably because he was so out of breath.

The height of the fence worried Iris too much for her to linger on the silly thought that he sounded _handsome _regardless.

"I can't climb that," she told him, but he just extended his hands towards her. 

The silent signal to quickly take his hand, no question asked.

Alright then.

Iris reached out before she even swallowed down her nervousness.

She yelped at being jolted off the ground and grunted a bit at the bite of the harness on Zoom's chest against her ribs as he squeezed her onto his side, but she ended up in a reasonably comfortable position, holding onto the thief like...a koala. There really was no other term to describe her sideway hold on him, arms wrapped around his shoulder and legs secured to his waist.

And, _wow_, okay, the speedster definitely wasn't a wimp without his speed, because he jumped off the ground and heaved himself over that fence as if she wasn't weighing him down.

He wrapped his arms around her midway in the jump down, and Iris' nose buried into his covered neck as she braced for the landing. She heard Zoom grunt a bit, but from her perspective it was a decently smooth Landing.

She forced herself to peer down the building as the thief took a few steps back for momentum, and there was the breach, its shimmering blue surface opened sky up a few feet down and away from the building.

It was located right above the military truck, which she now understood Zoom and Reverb had used as reference for the breach.

"Don't move!" Someone said behind them, but Zoom had already taken off the roof.

Iris gasped in horror when she estimated that they would miss the breach by about a foot, but then she heard the familiar snaps of electricity indicative of the speedster's powers, and was rendered speechless as everything slowed down around them.

The detective had the time to take in the sky, which had taken a yellow hue as the sun started its way down to setting.

She had the time to turn around and count three soldiers standing in full military gear, the many unconscious security guards at their feet. One soldier was in the middle of clicking off the safety of a real rifle, halfway lifted towards her and Zoom.

She had the time to observe swirls of Zoom's yellow lightning gather into a flat surface underneath them.

When the thief placed his foot on it like a stepping stone to cover the rest of the distance to the breach, everything returned to regular speed.

As she dived into the portal with the speedster, Iris wondered if all meta-human powers felt as exhilarating as Zoom's.


	10. Part 3_Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Breaking the ice with Frost is an awkward affair, but Iris' eventful day ends on an high note.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little tension then a little cuteness to balance out the fast pace of last chapter.

The tachyon device from Mercury Labs was indeed what Zoom and his team needed to defeat Bootleg, though apparently it needed some modifications.

"Wait, why change it if it can enhance your speed?" Iris asked Zoom when he mentioned reversing the device's function an hour after they'd all returned to the secret lair." Shouldn't you just use it on you to go faster than your copycat?"

"I'd rather not test a piece of tech not even out of R&D on myself," the thief replied flippantly. "Besides, it would take longer to figure out how much it should enhance my speed than to just make it syphon all of that guy's speed."

A fair point. The faster they could cuff the serial killer, the better. The detective needed to stop by CCPD and check the reports on the Hammers victims to see if she could anticipate the next ones. The gang was quite large, but maybe the targeted members had something in common other than being part of it.

"Well, let me know when the device's ready. How do I get out of here?" 

West glared back at the unimpressed stares she got from the group of thieves.

"Secret lair, alright," she conceded with a shrug before focusing on Zoom, "so you speed me out of here."

"Secret _ base _," he corrected, "and actually, we'd gladly host you until the mission's over," he added casually.

"We would?" Reverb asked just as Siren objected "No we wouldn't!"

"Yeah, _ no,_ I draw the line at being roommates with people who have no respect for life," the cop asserted as she glared at the masked woman in black.

When Zoom and her had stepped out of the portal into the secret lab, Black Siren had been bragging to Reverb about making some of the guards bleed with her powerful cry when she was escaping the electrical room.

"These guards are ex-military, you think that they're blameless? Many of them moonlight as poachers…"

"Save your twisted excuses for someone who'd listen to them," Iris advised her as she pointed a reprimanding finger to the meta-human.

She then turned to Zoom, who truly was the least problematic criminal of the group, the only one without a confirmed death linked to his activities.

"Get me out before I change my mind and meta-cuff you all," she demanded.

"That's gotta be the emptiest threat I've ever heard," an icy, echoing voice called out from a door on the side of the wide monitoring room, which the detective hadn't noticed before.

Detective West had never met Crystal Frost in person, but it was easy to tell that she was the extremely pale-skinned woman with the voluminous platinum blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders and back in loose waves, dressed in a navy, skin-tight strapless bustier top with matching high-waisted pants and boots, all leather.

Iris had read many reports about the ice meta over the years, yet she did not remember reading that she wore a mask. It seemed to be made of ice, just like the lovely snowflake necklace that was clashing with her gothic makeup.

"You wouldn't stand a chance against any one of us," Frost claimed in her ominous voice.

"Only because I don't have powers," the cop pointed out. "I had to work for the skills I possess today, they weren't handed out to me in some freak accident."

"Excuse you!" Reverb exclaimed as he flattened a hand on his chest. "_ I _ had plenty of skills I worked for before the universe chose me to be amongst the few humans to evolve to a god-like level!"

"Ditto," Black Siren chimed in. "But yeah, Frost, not much _you_ can do other than turn people into popsicles. The cop isn't wrong about that."

The temperature in the room dropped alarmingly, and Iris gasped at the sight of Crystal Frost's hands emitting ice vapor.

"I remember telling you to stay in the back, Crystal," Zoom's voice said calmly.

Too calmly, in fact, and dared Iris think, coldly?

It brought goosebumps to her thankfully covered skin just as the temperature went back to normal and the ice meta reeled in her powers.

"You said until you left for Mercury Labs, which you did," the pale woman talked back after rolling her eyes.

"So not what he meant and you know it Elsa," Reverb quipped as he walked past her out of the door she had come from.

Elsa? He was using a Disney princess's name to address a literal cold-blooded criminal?

"Let's go," Zoom's vibrating voice said from unexpectedly close, and Iris couldn't help startling at it.

She squinted her eyes at Frost and Siren, who snickered at her reaction.

"Yeah, okay," the detective agreed just before the speedster lifted her in his arms bridal style.

"For your information, I'm the only permanent resident at the base," Zoom told her when he dropped her off at a deserted corner of the precinct, not far from the parking lot. "In case it changes your mind about enjoying the luxury that us high end thieves take for granted."

"How could I enjoy any of it knowing that one, it was paid with stolen money, and two, that you'd be a few doors over the whole time?" The detective argued as she crossed her arms over her chest.

She had changed into civilian clothes soon after Reverb had breached her and Zoom back into their base. Her hair was now in a loose ponytail and shrinking up because of all the sweating, but it was just fine. She'd left her car at the precinct and could drive home first to take a shower, straighten her hair and put makeup on before returning to CCPD to look up the hierarchy within the Hammers gang.

"Well, what better opportunity would we have to get that 'physical relationship' started?" The speedster teased as he walked backward, putting much needed distance between them because if he'd stayed close Iris would've punched his stupid vibrating face for this boldly flirtatious line.

"After colluding with you, I'm not interested anymore," she lied instead.

Her body was _very much_ interested, now that it had experienced a preview of what the thief could do—oh, for heaven's sake, West!

"That's a shame," Zoom declared without too much concern. "I'll gladly change your mind back," he added before disappearing with a flash of lightning.

Iris groaned as she dropped her head into her hands.

It was just her luck that she'd start lusting after the criminal that was keeping her away from her promotion.

Why hadn't she hit on Barry Allen, all these years? If she'd been in a healthy, boring relationship with a good boy, she wouldn't be thirsty for a bad one.

"Detective West?" Someone called out on her left.

Speaking of the devil.

"Doing overtime, Allen?" she asked as a way of greeting.

The CSI stared at her silently for a few seconds, and the detective felt even more vulnerable than usual under his penetrating gaze.

"You haven't actually changed much from high school either," he finally said with a flicking smile. "Maybe I should wear some makeup to age myself, too."

Iris exploded in laughter, not just at his words but at the seriousness of his tone.

"You'd be facing other problems if you started wearing makeup," she warned when she finally calmed down, and grinned at the blush that bloomed on those stunning cheekbones.

"Yeah you're right," he acknowledged, rubbing a hand to the back of his neck.

Iris held his gaze for a bit longer than usual, savoring the giddiness that his presence had brought her.

If only he could give her a clear sign that he was interested.

"Were you leaving?" He asked her as he looked around, probably noting that there was nothing to do there.

He was very likely coming out of his lab and going to the magnetic train station a few blocks away to get home.

"Yes, would you like a ride?" She offered without thinking. 

She absentmindedly realized that this was the first time in all these years that she'd had the opportunity to do so, as the two never left the precinct at the same time. Unlike her, Barry worked a fixed nine-hours-shift and punched out on the clock. 

"Oh, I wouldn't want to impose," her adorable crush politely replied, his face falling a little.

"You're not imposing, you're kind of on my way actually," the detective reassured him with a smile.

He returned it with a faint stretch of his lips as he voiced his consent.

While leading the way to her car, Iris reflected that her attraction to Barry was almost soothing, definitely more subdued than her lust for Zoom. Her desire for the CSI wasn't any less potent than that for the thief, but it made her feel better, and not just on a moral standpoint. It felt right. Zoom left her hot and bothered, but Barry Allen brought her clarity of mind. He was definitely a man she could introduce to her conservative father, though of course Joe West would find a dozen reasons why Barry wouldn't be good enough for her.

She wouldn't listen to him of course, for why would she pass on romance with the only nerd who made science sound simple and _fun_ when he recounted the tests he had to run over the weekend in preparation for more experiments on Monday? And why would she refuse to finally have an excuse to drown into eyes the color of the sea?

Unfortunately, Barry Allen and her were not an item. Yet.

She'd ask him out after getting Bootleg beyond bars. Definitely.

"Thank you very much for the ride, Detective," the CSI said as he clumsily released his belt.

"You know, Allen, I liked it when you called me by my first name the other day at your place," she confessed as she glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

He did not disappoint, blushing furiously and quietly sputtering as he fumbled to open the door.

"Wow, I'm hurt, you clearly cannot wait to get away from me," she teased him mercilessly as he stepped out of the car and closed the passenger door, thankfully without hurting himself.

"What? No!" He denied passionately, bending over to look at her across the window with wide eyes. "That's not true, Detective, I—"

"Iris," she gently corrected.

He blinked a few times—those ridiculous eyelashes!—then nodded slightly.

"Iris," he repeated softly, then stayed quiet for a bit as if he was appreciating the sound of her name.

"Iris," he said again, with a satisfied smile this time, "I don't want to get away from you—I mean, oh not like…Sorry, one moment."

The cop chuckled a bit as her colleague took a deep breath.

"Iris," he uttered for the third time, and oh he _liked_ her, didn't he? Iris hadn't made it all up, after all.

"Would you like to go out with me for dinner on Tuesday?" He asked her in one breath.

The meaning of the words didn't register right away, Iris was still amused by his adorable behavior.

Then she felt her eyes widening and her smile stretch. She wasn't on patrol this upcoming Tuesday.

"I'd like that, yeah," she answered before Barry could take it back.

Screw Zoom and his sexual innuendos, she was going on a real date with Barry Allen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be honest, did you see Barry's invitation to dinner coming?  
What about Zoom's invitation to sleep over?  
Also, assume that this is a Saturday. Plenty of time for things to happen between then and Tuesday, I'm just saying...
> 
> More Team Zoom next chapter!


	11. Part 3_Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris learns about the hit on her head, and learns about the connection between Mercury Labs, the military and Bootleg.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapters makes a few call backs to previous chapters but hopefully it's easy to follow.
> 
> Apparently I have a thing for Barry leaving Iris in luxurious apartments. Blame it on the show, that loft is nice!

Iris West was, in all modesty, one of the best detectives of CCPD, but she was also a regular human being.

A regular human being who had a date with her years-long crush. 

She had been giddy with excitement at the prospect of a relationship with Barry Allen, the cutest nerd she knew, who happened to be very handsome and unfairly sexy… 

So forgive her if she was in too good of a mood to be paranoid about the few 'almost' accidents on her patrol on Monday. After all, that stupid driver who had burned the red light couldn't have tried to kill himself along with her and Lawton on purpose. 

But when Zoom took it upon himself to speed her and Floyd out of an unexpected shooting at a club flagged for a 212*, Iris should have deduced that something was very _ wrong _.

"Never thought that I'd be happy to see you," Lawton told the speedster between loud breaths. "Wait, are those guys Hammers? You're here to _ kill _ them?"

"Hammers know better than to shoot at cops," West pointed out as she checked the ammunition of the gun she had borrowed from her partner, who was a lousy shot.

The clip was empty. Zoom had showed up at the right time.

"How did you know we were there?" She asked the thief, and blinked at how his whole body vibrated, instead of just his face.

His head was turned towards the corner he'd just rescued them from. Their abandoned patrol car would need some repair, the windshield was totally busted.

"Zoom?" Iris called, and his head whipped around to face her.

She could see lightning lighting up his eyes, something she'd never witnessed before.

Was he...Was he angry?

"What's wrong with him?" Floyd asked alarmingly as he inched behind Iris.

The fear in her partner seemed to snap Zoom out of it. Except for his face, his body returned to normal.

Detective West did notice that his chest was rising and falling rather quickly. He was definitely upset.

"How did you know that we were there, Zoom?" The woman asked again in a stern voice.

"I didn't, I was running an errand nearby," he answered carefully, his tone unnaturally even through his modified voice. "The noise was annoying me so I went to tell the shooters to tone it down."

"An errand," Iris repeated skeptically.

The club West and Lawton had been dispatched to was on Griggs and Heller. Infantino Street crossed Heller a few blocks from there. Wasn't there a new jewelry store on Infantino and Tenth?

Sounds of sirens muted out whatever Zoom started to say, then he sped away and back.

"Don't worry, I notified your backup that you're here," the speedster said, his head turned towards Lawton.

"Thanks?" The male detective replied hesitantly.

Iris was about to chastise the thief for risking being shot on sight by her fellow officers when she felt his now familiar arms grabbing her before the snap of lightning resonated loudly in her ears.

The next thing she knew, Detective West was in a luxurious apartment. Zoom had disappeared.

"What the… " she whispered, taking in the place she assumed was in the same building as the thief's secret hideout. Or maybe it was in another building that Zoom owned.

Ugh, why did crime actually pay?

The detective quickly noticed the first-aid kit on a glass coffee table, and relocated to the huge adjacent bathroom to clean and bandage the cuts and scraps she'd collected during the shooting.

She was grateful for the speedster's intervention because, for once, the pain killers were kicking in before her body came down from the adrenaline rush. A hot shower would help alleviate the soreness she was guaranteed to feel the next day.

But before that, she had to find Zoom, who had basically abducted an officer on duty. She remained in her clothes, only unbuckling her empty holster, and traded her boots for comfortable slippers found by a bed with bed sheets that seemed to cost her yearly salary.

When she exited the suite, Iris noticed a keycard halfway inserted into the reader at the door. She took it, and used it to open the many other doors that led her away from the elegant and rustic residential space to the more modern and tech-themed area of the building.

After getting lost a few times, Iris found the locker room she had used to change clothes two days before. From there it was easy to find the operations room of Zoom's secret lair—secret _ base_, whatever.

She didn't cross the double glass doors that separated her from the monitors right away because she got rooted on the spot with shock.

Zoom, the most calm criminal she knew, was _ shouting_.

"What do you mean you don't know? Can't you hack into the club's CCTV system?" He was asking Reverb, who was typing furiously at a touch keyboard.

"I already did, but the footage from the past hour and a half has been deleted," the breached replied with a sigh.

"There's got to be a way to recover them, right? Find it! Find who did this!" The speedster demanded loudly.

"Hey!" Black Siren exclaimed from her seat in front of a dim screen, one earphone in her ear and the other held in her hand. "You might be the leader, but I'm the only one allowed to scream at Cis—what's she doing here!?"

Oh, the blonde woman had spotted Iris, who had no choice but to walk in.

"Iris," Zoom said, his voice finally quiet again.

"What's going on?" She asked him carefully. "Did helping us jeopardize your 'errand' or…"

"Wait, you didn't tell her?" Siren asked Zoom, who sighed.

It was a funny sound, what with his vibrating vocal cords.

"Tell me what?" The detective asked back, not happy to learn that information had been withheld from her.

"McMillan put a hit out on you," the speedster informed her.

What?

"Senator McMillan?" The cop reflexively inquired.

"How many McMillans do you know?" Reverb drawled as he turned in his swivel chair to face her.

"But…," she started as she alternatively stared at the three thieves. "Why?"

It couldn't be because she'd called out Page on his bullshit, could it? So what if she knew that her mentor was a dirty cop? _Everyone_ knew!

"We don't know for sure," Zoom told her, "but it might be my fault."

"How?" Iris questioned as she took a careful step towards the speedster.

"Because of me you called and tried to see Dr. Wells on Thursday," he reminded her.

Yeah, Harrison Wells had yet to return the detective's calls, despite the fact that she left him multiple messages, voicemails and handwritten notes she left for him at the reception of S.T.A.R. Labs. The physicist was clearly avoiding the police.

"And yesterday I learned that there's a mark on you, supposedly from Mayor Snart but unsubstantiated rumors name McMillan as the initial contractor."

"Page and Snart go way back," the detective reflected out loud, "so it might just be that my own fucking mentor asked her** to get rid of me just because he can."

"I highly suggest that you stay here until things clear out, Detective," the speedster proposed.

"I'm a cop!" Iris objected in a knee-jerk response as anger rose in her throat. "I'm not going to room with the thief that's keeping me away from my _ promotion! _ Had I been a level 3 by now, I'd be too important to Snart for Page to throw me under the bus! This is _ your _ fault!"

She saw Reverb and Siren startle in shock at her words, but their leader remained impassive.

"You're not a level 3 because you're too good at your job, Detective West," he calmly countered, "and I'm convinced that the abduction of Jesse Wells has more to do with your hit than whatever Detective Page could do."

"How so?" Iris asked, curious 

"General Wade Fucking Eiling," the chilly voice of Crystal Frost spoke out on the detective's right.

Iris blinked at the meta-human appearance: her hair was tied in a neat ponytail, and she was wearing a very conservative grey blouse and tan pencil skirt under a white lab coat. Her blue lipstick and ice mask were totally out of place.

"Did Cai-did she found the connection?" Zoom asked her expectantly, tripping over whoever's name he had to hide from the only non-criminal in the room.

"Said it's all in here," the ice-meta confirmed as she handed a flash drive to Reverb.

"Atta girl," the breacher commented as he plugged the storage device to his computer.

A wide projector automatically switched on, and a bunch of files swept over, most of them looking like medical forms.

Many headers and footers had been highlighted in red, handwritten notes making comments on them.

"I knew this would happen…But it has been happening already!" Zoom shouted with a kick to the closest chair.

"Well, shit," Reverb swore somberly.

"Is anyone going to update me on what's 'been happening'?" The police officer asked loudly.

The speedster slowly turned towards her, and though Iris couldn't see his face, she could tell that he was debating divulging all the details to her, a _ non-meta _.

Medical science wasn't Detective West's forte, but it didn't take an expert to notice the repeatedly circled "meta-human" on most of the projected forms.

"The Military is conducting experiments to replicate meta-human powers," Zoom explained. "We know that they approached Dr. Wells about it a year ago because he was the first one to figure out how the meta-gene works…But Dr. Wells declined, in fact all the directors of the biggest private labs in Central City refused. Or so we thought."

"Dr. McGee didn't," Iris guessed, remembering the troopers intervening at Mercury Labs.

"We always wondered how she could update her security so fast," Frost recalled. "That's how. She's given all the money she needs to protect her projects because they're also the government's top-secret projects."

"And she probably has a few researchers in her facilities who are paid by the Pentagon rather than herself, and thus aren't on her employees list," Detective West added. "No wonder she never cooperates with our investigation on your thefts of her tech. And with the money her commercialized products make, she definitely has Snart on speed dial."

Well, now Iris truly didn't regret never putting much effort into those investigations.

"But what does that have to do with me? It's not like she knows that I was the one who helped steal a device from her," She asked Zoom a second before figuring it out herself.

"Bootleg," she said at the same time as Reverb.

"Huh, not bad, for a non-genius regular human," the breacher teased.

"This copycat has to be one of the military's Guinea pigs!" The detective guessed, ignoring the snide comment. "I told Page that I know that you're not behind the murders," Iris informed the Dark Speedster. "The lead CSI on the case, Barry Allen, has already told Page about finding out that Bootleg isn't a meta, so now everyone who matters knows that I know too. Oh my God, Barry! He's probably in danger!"

"He's fine!" Zoom quickly assured her. "You're the only one who's being targeted."

"Would you even care if one of my colleagues got hurt?" The cop questioned the thief. "You left Floyd out there!"

"_After _ I directed your backup his way," the speedster defended with raised hands.

"Barry is a meta-human expert," Iris insisted. "He's improved a lot of the special meta equipment donated by Dr. Wells. So he'd be on the military's radar. And we're dating now…"

"Excuse-me?" Zoom asked comically, his pitch risen too high.

Iris couldn't help her smug smile.

Okay, so Barry and her weren't dating _ yet _ , but they had an upcoming _ date_, and now that she knew that Allen liked her too, she'd do her best to make them work. 

"Wait! Since when?" Reverb asked, curious but also too cheerful for someone whose boss got indirectly rejected in public.

"None of your business," she replied as she crossed her arms over her chest to stare back at Zoom's vibrating face. "My point is, McMillan and or the military could also target him. Could you bring him in too?"

"No, we don't just bring in strangers who work for the police into our secret base," Zoom refused flatly.

"_Strangers,_" Black Siren repeated with a snort.

"Alright, then I'll leave," Iris decided. "By the way, you took me away from an ongoing investigation, that's not going to help your reputation. Get me out of here and drop me at Barry's place."

"You'll just put him in danger if you stay with him," Zoom started, then froze. "Wait, you want to stay at his place? To_ sleep over_?"

"Why, you're jealous?" The detective teased, and she would have given all the money in her retirement plan to see the speedster's face right now. He sounded green with envy!

"He doesn't need protection," the thief insisted. "And I do care about… About the CSI division because they're the ones who will provide the evidence that will clean my name from the Hammers murders,"

"Not like you're totally_ clean,_" Iris pointed out. "Drop me at Allen's place anyway. I want to adjust our dinner plans for tomorrow," she couldn't help showing off.

"The military and corrupt politicians are after you, but your _ love life _ is your priority, " Frost commented derisively.

"Hey, as long as they're not meta-humans I can take them, now that I know what to expect," the detective asserted with a shrug. "In fact, I can take the meta-humans too," she added with a challenging lift of an eyebrow as she stared at the ice-meta.

"Anytime you want to get your ass kicked, girlfriend," Frost replied playfully.

"Nobody's kicking the other's ass," Zoom objected as he approached Iris.

For a moment she expected him to make an inappropriate comment about her ass, but he was all too serious this evening.

Before she could point out that she was in slippers, Iris found herself at the door of Barry's apartment.

Zoom left without a word, no doubt too jealous to wish her goodnight.

After picking up a phone call from a panicked Floyd and reassuring him that she was fine and would provide a full report the next day, she knocked at Barry's door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TF season 6 starts next Monday!!! I have high hopes for this season, the format sounds amazing. Biting my nails for Crisis on Infinite Earths though!
> 
> *212= illegal drug use. I doubt that's a universal code, though.
> 
> ** I made Lisa Snart the mayor in this one. I don't think that they even specified which Snart was the mayor on E2 in the show.


	12. Part 3_Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris tells Barry about the hit on her head and working with Zoom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot that this chapter was ready to go too, should've posted along with Chapter 11! Here you go!

"Detective West! What happened?" Barry's panicked reaction was dulled in Iris' mind as she recalled Crystal Frost's comment.

_The military and corrupt politicians are after you, but your love life is your priority._

No, her priority was Barry's safety. Her flippant comments at Zoom's base was a façade.

You see, Iris West had signed up for the dangers associated with her career, regardless of their sources, the day she'd picked up her badge and her gun.

Even before meta-human became a threat to Central City, the woman had known that she could die any day, on a patrol or in a dark alley.

Despite being a CCPD employee, brilliant and resourceful Bartholomew Henry Allen was not from the same world as Iris.

He didn't have a badge, nor a gun, he couldn't even show up to work on time to save his life. What would happen to him if his meta-human expertise or his association with Iris _did_ get him on McMillan's radar?

"Please come in, come in!" The CSI invited the detective, ushering her gently through the door as he looked around the hallway.

"Where's Detective Lawton?" He asked after locking up behind them. "Weren't you two on patrol tonight? Do you need anything, Detective? Would you like some tea, perhaps?"

"Tea would be nice, thank you," Iris agreed just to quiet him down. "Chamomile?"

"Right away," he replied before shuffling down his kitchen.

Iris took advantage of his absence to inspect what she could see of his apartment.

Hardwood floor, high ceilings, a telescope by the balcony door. There was only one ostentatiously expensive vase by the TV screen, but even the more modest furniture of the living room—a couch, a love seat, a desktop computer and a large bookcase filled with science books—was clearly made of high quality materials.

Maybe Barry's parents were paying for his apartment after all.

One of the many reasons why Barry Allen had stood out in Central City High—and was allegedly bullied for—was that he didn't belong with the rest of the kids. He had been one of the few privileged kids amongst the struggling middle class of Central City. But CC High's advanced class program had been funded by Barry's family for generations and it was tradition for them to attend the public school and be the smartest students there.

What had Mr. and Mrs. Allen been thinking, though allowing their only child to work for the police? Barry belonged in some fancy private lab like S.T.A.R. Labs or Tannhauser!

"Won't you have a seat? Does your back hurt?" Allen returned from the kitchen with a tiny cup of tea on a saucer and his motherly concern.

"We need to talk, Barry," Iris let him know with a sigh as she eased into the couch right in front of the teacup he'd placed on the coffee table.

"Alright," the CSI acknowledged, sounding worried.

When Iris glanced at him, she wasn't surprised to be the focus of his scrutinizing gaze.

She sighed again, and stalled by taking a sip of the chamomile tea. Its smell calmed her enough to get straight to the point.

"Bootleg—the fake speedster—was made by the military," she informed her colleague.

The CSI blinked multiple times, then gaped at her.

"How do you know that?" He asked her cautiously.

Good, at least he was aware that this was a dangerous piece of information to know.

"I've been...Working with a questionable crowd to get a sure lead on the investigation," the detective confessed.

A few heartbeats of silence, then Barry removed his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.

Did it make Iris a bad person that despite the dire circumstances, she wanted to kiss the freckles on his jaw?

"Questionable crowd like Detective Page?" The scientist asked quietly as he put his glasses back on and kept his gaze down on his lap.

"What? _No_, I'm not a dirty cop," Iris immediately corrected his assumption. "I'm working with Zoom to clear up his name."

"Oh," Barry reacted, his face lighting up in clear relief. "I mean, he _is_ a thief, but..."

"He's not a killer, yeah, that's why I'm risking my reputation to get to the bottom of this story," the detective explained. "He's the one who told me about the military. Apparently Mercury Labs is collaborating with The Pentagon to create meta-humans without the meta gene."

"That's unethical," the CSI immediately condemned the practice, his full eyebrows lowering in a deep frown. "Dr. McGee isn't that type of scientist..."

"Maybe she had no choice," Iris speculated, willing to give the other woman the benefit of the doubt, "but I know for certain that she is working with them. One of her research teams even made a device that can enhance or deplete a speedster' powers. Thank you for letting me know that this type of gadgets existed, by the way."

That got her an odd furtive look from the CSI, who then sighed.

"I doubt that she's going to lend it to us to arrest that speedster," he guessed. "He could incriminate her, and not only would she lose credibility in her field, but the military will cut all ties with her."

Iris refrained from telling him that she and Zoom had already stolen the device. Moreover, it was more likely that the military would prevent Bootleg to testify in the first place.

"We can't report to Page if we don't have irrefutable evidence, Detective," Allen pointed out. "Can Zoom acquire such evidence?"

"Right now Zoom's more concerned with finding who McMillan has hired to kill me," the cop shared offhandedly with an eye roll.

She regretted her words immediately. When she turned to Barry, she saw how much blood had drained from his face.

"So far it's only been amateurish attempts," the detective tried to reassure her colleague, "so he can't be very serious about it. It's probably a scare tactic more than anything, because I know more than I should. So do you, Barry. You're the one who figured out that the copycat wasn't a meta-human. That's why I'm here."

"To warn me that I might get shot, too?" The CSI asked alarmingly.

"No, _no_! I would never let anything happen to you!" Iris promised a bit louder than she wanted. 

The wild stare he gave her made her stomach flutter.

"I mean, I think I can convince Zoom to let you bunk up at his secret base," she added more carefully. "You have ton of saved paid leave, right?"

"I am the lead CSI on the case?" Allen reminded her uncertainly. "Even if I didn't want to see it through, which I do, Detective Page will not let me go on vacation in the middle of it. He gave me an earful for working from home last week..."

"If you tell the Captain that you have a family emergency, he'll let you take your leave and Page won't be able to do anything about it," Iris advised him. "I know that expecting safety from criminals is ironic, but—"

"You're the one who's in imminent danger, Detective," Barry pointed out as he looked her up and down. "You're already injured, and that's from 'amateurish' attempts?"

"I got a few _scratches_," the cop reflexively corrected after taking another sip of her tea, "and that's because I didn't know that I was a target, and because I stupidly didn't expect to exchange bullets with some street thugs at a high end nightclub."

"Right," Barry acknowledged stiffly as he ran a hand over his jaw all the way to the back of his neck, his fingers grabbing a fistful of his chestnut hair as he looked between his feet.

"Hey, I'm fine, really," Iris felt the need to reassure him. "Floyd and I got lucky that Zoom was in the area and pulled us out when we ran out of ammo—"

"You got _lucky_," Allen reiterated as his head snapped towards her, his voice breaking on the word lucky.

"Come on, Allen, I can take care of myself," the detective quickly reminded the CSI, "like I said, I was taken by surprise, but now that I know what's coming for me..."

"What? What will you do now that you know?" Barry asked her, his voice taking a sharp edge Iris didn't even know he could use. 

"McMillan is a gun lobbyist on the surface, a weapon and human trafficker behind the scene," the CSI unnecessarily reminded her. "He's got Page making sure that the worst traffickers stay in business in Central despite our efforts. And Page hates your guts! Page, who has Seargants Collins, Guerrero and Davis in his corner. Collins' marksmanship has increased by three points on his last evaluation, did you know that Detective?"

The info momentarily dampened Iris' outrage at Barry's condescending tone.

Three points? That meant that Collins was now as good as her. But West hadn't taken an evaluation in a while, and she knew that she had improved since her last one almost a year ago.

"Now I know," she replied calmly, "and? Page and the others have jobs too, they can't ambush me during my patrols. However dirty they are, they'd return fire to whoever would try to gun me down in front of them. And I don't appreciate your implication that I'm helpless against whoever McMillan has sent to take me out, Barry. I am one of the best cops in this city."

"You are _the best_ uncorrupted cop in this city," the CSI argued, "and maybe in a simulated environment you could take out half of the precinct and whoever's left of the Hammers, but this is real life, Iris!"

The cop was left speechless by the young man's vehemence, and when she tried to get a word out he shot off the couch and started pacing.

"You're one cop with a lousy partner," Barry pointed out as he grabbed his hair with a hand, "constantly distracted by the safety of the people you swore to protect, so you can't be alert all the time even if you know that people are after you. You're asking _me_ to hide away? _You_ should be the one taking a leave!"

"Don't you for a second think that you can tell me what to do when I'm the one with a badge," Iris replied reflexively, struggling to keep her voice down as she stood up herself. "Especially if that's _running away_ from the people who think they can mess up with me!"

Barry's hand dropped from his head as he glared at her. _Glared!_

"Wow, sorry Detective," the CSI told her, sounding anything _but_ sorry. "I thought that, since I finally grew the backbone to ask you on a date, I might as well express concern about your safety face to face. You know, instead of silently worrying myself sick about you all day in my lab until I get lucky enough to be called on the same crime scene as you!"

Iris had been about to scream at him that he shouldn't talk to her like that, but his double confession that he'd wanted to ask her out for a while and that he was constantly worried about her sucked the anger right out of her chest.

"What?" She whispered, her wide eyes locked on his.

That deer in the headlights look was unfairly adorable on him, he had to know that, he was trying to get away with shouting at her with that look.

"I..._Oh shit_, I said that out loud?" Allen asked innocently, his body frozen in the middle of his living room.

"Yes you did," Iris confirmed, amusement warring with the urge to kiss him before they even went on a date.

Oh.

Were they still going on a date, after everything?

"Are you still going on a date with me?" Barry voiced her thought, his voice small and timid.

Iris crossed the living room as quickly as she could without stubbing her toes against furniture, and grew a backbone of her own to push Barry against the bookcase and to hold his face in place before standing on her tiptoes to kiss him.

At first Allen almost vibrated in shock—funny that Iris' brain could still bring up Zoom while she was very much busy with another man—but then he relaxed and returned her kiss.

And holy smoke, where had a nerd like Barry Allen learned to kiss? He started slow enough, countering Iris' aggressiveness by keeping the pressure of his lips light, and by gently but firmly removing her hand from his jaw, interlacing his fingers to hers as he brought both of their arms down.

Then he rubbed his free hand up Iris' back, the warmth of his large hand and the friction between the fabric of her shirt and her skin causing goosebumps to erupt all over her body, and requiring her to pull away for a beat to take a much needed breath.

Barry didn't let her fill up her lungs, and what little oxygen she took in was promptly knocked back out when he turned them around and pinned her against the bookcase.

And that upper body musculature she had peeked the week before? Not for show. Allen let go of her hand and her back to lift her off the floor, wrapping her legs around his waist before he replaced one hand on her lower back and the other in her hair.

"Barry—" Iris called, not even sure what she wanted to say, but he didn't even let her form a coherent thought as he took advantage of her parted lips to lick into her mouth.

The detective couldn't tell how long they stayed against that bookcase frenching each other, but when she started rubbing herself against Barry, he almost dropped her as if she had burned him. Her arms around his neck and his hands quickly repositioning at her waist prevented her from falling unceremoniously on the floor when he pulled his lower body away from hers.

"I don't—sorry, I..." he stuttered as Iris regained her footing on the floor, one slipper off.

"Apologies accepted," she conceded, fighting not to giggle at his returned shyness.

His eyes searched hers—his glasses were askew—and he swallowed audibly before speaking again.

"I'd really like to take you on a date before...Um, I mean, you know!" He said vaguely, but the detective decided to let him off the hook.

"Alright," she replied with a smile as she took one hand away from his neck to fix his glasses.

They stared at each other for another intense minute before Barry looked away first—Iris had never won their staring contest before!—and let out a long sigh through his kiss-swollen lips.

"I shouldn't have talked to you like that, forgive me," he said somberly before dropping his forehead on her shoulder. "I'm just...This case was already dangerous from the get go because of that speedster, but the military? And the Senator putting a hit on you? This is too much for anyone at CCPD, Iris."

"I have back up," she pointed out calmly as she ran a hand through his hair, and yep, it was as soft as she'd expected. "There's Zoom and other metas I'm now glad no one has managed to arrest. Zoom wants his name cleared of these murders, so he'll help."

Barry lifted his head off her shoulder and took a step back, making Iris immediately miss his warmth.

"What?" She asked when she noticed the odd look her—date? Hookup? _Boyfriend_? Where did those torrid kisses leave them?—colleague gave her.

"Sounds like you've been spending a lot of time with Zoom," Allen noted wryly, "who everyone knows wants to steal you away."

"Steal me away?" The detective repeated with a grimace. "I'm not a piece of tech or some expensive jewelry for him to want to steal me!"

"You're a national treasure," the CSI argued with a shrug. "The best of Central City's best, an invaluable resource to our understaffed precinct, even though Captain Taylor won't put a good word for you to get your well-deserved promotion."

Wow, if anyone had told Iris West weeks ago that she would blush from Barry Allen's praise, she would've cuffed them.

"You deserve a promotion too," she returned the compliment as she vainly attempted to fix her bun. "_You're_ the national treasure, Barry. All the other meta-human experts work in the private sector, you're the only one using this prized knowledge to help people rather than win some phony award and make the cover of science magazines."

Allen opened his mouth, probably to minimize his worth, but that was the moment Iris pulled the wrong hair pin and her hair fell down over her shoulders. His mouth remained open as his eyes took in her blushing face and her messy hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Barry's POV will be next! I'm having a lot of fun writing it so far, so I hope that you'll enjoy the next four chapters!


	13. Part 4: Barry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry's thoughts after kissing Iris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucky chapter 13!
> 
> There's a lot of exposition in this one because it was time I gave a little background to Barry's dual personality. I edited chapter 8 a bit so hopefully there's no discrepancy between what's said there and here.

Barry closed his mouth shut after blinking his eyes at one of his fantasies turned reality:

Iris West, cheeks flushed, lips swollen from kissing _ him_, her disheveled hair falling over her shoulders. He hadn't even needed to slow down time to enjoy that cascade of dark tresses.

He had kissed _Iris West_. The woman of his dreams was in his living room, breathing unevenly from making out with him. A few days ago, he would've never imagined that he'd get so lucky.

Barry was naturally awkward. Unless he was giving a presentation or working in his lab or on a crime scene, he didn't have the mental focus for an average eye to body coordination. This permanent clumsiness had appeared after his second growth spurt at seventeen years old, and somehow he'd never gotten rid of it.

Most people were put off by his ungracefulness. Many officers at CCPD kept their distances whenever he was in the vicinity, and even his interns were wary of him outside of the lab. The few girlfriends he had dated in college had at first found it attractive but then judged it one of his greatest flaws.

Aside from Barry's parents, Iris West seemed to be the only person who didn't mind that he had two left feet.

In fact, the detective sometimes smiled wider at him whenever he tripped over himself or his words. She would occasionally tease him about being in a rush all the time, or would ask if he was okay after he hurt himself, but his awkwardness clearly didn't make her think less of him the way it did for everyone else.

That was one of the reasons why he'd fallen head over heels in love with her.

To be sure, Barry had always found Iris to be the most beautiful woman in the world, ever since he first saw her in the hallways of Central City High.

He'd admired her from afar, like many other students. Not only did she look great, but she had a sunny disposition that endeared her to virtually everyone in school. Barry had endured the occasional bullying as he never missed a day of class just to be blessed with her radiant smile, never mind that it was never directed at him.

He'd almost passed out like a star-struck fan when he met her again six years after graduating from CCHS, on his first day at CCPD.She'd greeted him with a hug, as if they'd been friends back in the day.

She had apparently known about his love for science, and unlike his parents she was thrilled that Barry had chosen to serve the people of Central City rather than work in a corporate laboratory.

She'd offered him a smoothie from Big Belly Burger the first time he'd cried over a case—the homicide of two teenage boys—and had praised him for 'caring' instead of asking him to 'man up' like Detective Page had.

When Barry had miraculously survived being struck by lightning during a storm at a crime scene in the old industrial area, Detective West had been the first person to touch him when he'd returned to the precinct, asking him if he was okay.

That first time he'd been able to stare at her uninhibited because time had slowed down? He still had goosebumps thinking about it.

But after that, controlling his speed had been a nightmare. Barry was forced to fashion himself a meta-dampening watch and suppress his powers for a few weeks.

Controlling his powers took a lot of mental focus, and he later found out that it was easier to do when he had his suit on. There was something about the tightness of the outfit that kept him more alert than when he was out of it. Also, the adrenaline running through his system during heists or confrontations with other criminals or the police enhanced his senses and agility; Cisco and Laurel had admitted to feeling the same way about their powers. In that sense, they were still very much human.

That control over his powers translated into the control of his body: he almost never fumbled or stuttered when he was in full speedster mode.

A fortunate bonus, because he got to interact with Iris a lot back when he decided to try himself at vigilantism. She would've known that it was him under the mask had he been as clumsy talking to her in a suit at night as he was during the day.

He impossibly fell harder for Detective West during the time he went by the name of The Streak. She'd not only thanked him for his help with catching criminal meta-humans when other officers ignored him or took credit for his arrests, but she would occasionally ask him if he was okay being a meta-human himself, if he had people in his corner that made him feel accepted and valued. He didn't have anyone at the time, so the fact that _she_ treated him so kindly made him want to cry in joy and truly made him feel special. Iris was nice to him as Barry Allen too, but she was not overly familiar with him or anyone else at the precinct because she had her reputation of tough cop to preserve.

When Barry flipped to the other side of the law as Zoom, he couldn't stand to have Detective West look at him with disappointment—and later with resentment because he was the alleged main obstacle to her promotion.

He couldn't stand to have their special connection broken, so he tried to create a new one.

He'd never meant to flirt so blatantly with her. It all started with him trying to get back in her good graces by praising her for being amazing all around: professional, resilient, skilled in hand to hand combat and the best shot of CCPD, and strict about following protocols but also able to adapt the rules to different circumstances.

At first Iris thought that he was trying to bribe her. When she understood that it wasn't the case, she mostly ignored his compliments, but he kept giving them. Then one day she admitted that his flattery would never affect her.

_ "I already know that I'm a good cop, I work hard to be one," _ she'd pointed out while leaning against her car door, arms crossed over her chest. "_Either leave me alone or come up with better lines, speedster._"

_ "Does that mean that I have the right to compliment you for things you don't put any effort into, like your stunning beauty?" _ Barry had blurted out as a reply.

That had left her quite flustered. To this day he remembered how prettily she had blushed and stuttered, then how annoyed she had been with him for taking her by surprise.

Since then, he had kept on teasing her. The power to get under Iris' skin quickly became addictive to Barry, and like any drug the threshold to reach satisfaction became higher every time he gave into it. 

It was so easy for him to get caught up in the game when he was in his Zoom persona—an overconfident, gentlemanly thief who had infiltrated the black market of Central City with his charms and smarts, and sometimes his ruthlessness—that sometimes he was shocked by his own words once he took off his suit.

Barry would never, ever be as forward as he'd been with Iris for the past week without his mask on.

"May I use the bathroom to fix this?" The detective presently asked shyly as she ran a hand through her hair, avoiding his eyes.

This allowed him to admire her enticing appearance for one extended second.

God, she was so beautiful. 

"Of course! Second door to the left, it should be open," he replied, glad to break the sexual tension he now just realized thad been building while they were arguing over her safety.

As soon as Iris stepped away, Barry tumbled down into the loveseat.

He really, _really_ had to tread carefully here. He'd almost lost control of his powers when she initiated their kiss earlier. All the more reason to wait after not just one, but a few successful dates before he could let their brand new relationship get any serious. He needed time to be able to fully suppress his powers in Iris' proximity.

Barry had impulsively asked her out after their heist at Mercury Labs because he just couldn't keep his feelings to himself anymore.

After holding her in his arms and feeling the combined thrill of his powers and having her body pressed against his, he would've gone crazy if he'd gone back to admiring her from a safe distance.

The mark on her head had just added to Barry's urgency of having Iris by his side, now and always.

At least the detective was open to staying at his base given that he also went into hiding. Until Cisco could give the names of the hired hitmen from the club, Barry wouldn't take his eyes off of Iris when she was out of the precinct.

He needed that paid leave after all, because he also had to find Jesse Wells to confront Bootleg. So far his investigation and Iris' intervention hadn't panned out. He had to visit Dr. Wells as Zoom.

When Iris returned to the living room, Barry was resolute about his plan.

"I think I'll do as you say, take at least a week off," he told her.

"Really?" She asked, looking pleasantly surprised. "I think I can convince Zoom to take you in. I'd feel much better not just knowing that you're away from all the danger, but that we'll be there together. He has a state of the art lab, so you can still work on the case there if you want."

Barry was definitely excited to know that he would wake up under the same roof as her for the foreseeable future.

"I can't fully trust him or his meta-humans associates because they're all criminals at the end of the day," the detective confessed as she retook her seat on the couch. "I wish Zoom had remained a vigilante. He's not like Frost or Black Siren...He's a good man. He could have inspired other meta-humans to do good instead of hiding from us for fear of being mixed up with the bad ones. Instead, he chose the easy path of using his powers for his own interests."

"Yeah," Barry whispered back, ashamed of how little remorse he actually felt. He had been filled with guilt about his night life during the first months of his criminal career, but now he was indifferent to his disrespect for the law.

He did find it unfair that good people like Iris who were born, not _ poor_, but not as comfortable as his family, contented themselves with what the government decided was sufficient for their lifestyle.

In high school, Barry had noted that despite her great sense of fashion, Iris' wardrobe wasn't as high quality as that of the daughters of his parents' friends.

Over half a decade later, The CSI didn't get to see the detective outside of work very often, so the only expensive outfit he had ever seen her in was the one she had worn at Jitterbugs two years ago, when her father had stopped in Central City for his music tour.

Barry had still been The Streak then, and had helped the detective neutralize a meta-human who was robbing a store on the same block. Iris had almost assaulted the already cuffed thief because she'd broken the heel of her 'one pair of designer shoes' during the altercation.

Iris was a hardworking woman, underpaid and underappreciated by the city leaders. She deserved to afford all the designer shoes she wanted; she deserved to live in a place bigger than her one bedroom; she deserved to have her own personal gym to practice all the combat skills she knew, instead of crowding herself with the guys at the CCPD training center whenever she didn't have tons of paperwork to catch up to; she deserved to have enough money to donate to charity or build hospitals and schools and youth and women's centers—she'd shared that dream with The Streak once, and that had inspired Barry to do so himself when his criminal career became lucrative enough.

Whatever Iris desired should be at her disposal with a snap of her fingers.

The fingers that were currently holding the burner phone he had given her as Zoom.

"Errr, I'll be right back," he managed without stuttering before stepping into his bedroom, barely waiting for the distracted nod of acknowledgement Iris gave him.

The smartwatch hidden underneath his long sleeve vibrated just as he closed the door.

It was a good thing that his bedroom was soundproof.

"Missing me already?" Barry said through his vibrating vocal cords.

"You seriously need to tone down the flirting," Iris reprimanded. "Barry won't appreciate that."

"I don't care what your CSI appreciates, other than you that is," Zoom replied as he shook his head at talking about himself in the third person. 

"If you do care about me, you'll let him come with me to your base until we close this case," the detective demanded.

"Is that an ultimatum, Iris?" he asked, making sure to whisper her name lovingly.

Barry knew what that tone did to her. More than once he'd slowed down time to admire the shiver that coursed through her when he called her name as if it was the sweetest, most intoxicating liquor.

"Don't say my name like _ that!_" The cop hissed. "I swear, speedster, fast or not, I'll give you a taste of my right hook if you act fresh with me in front of Barry."

"Alright, alright," he agreed after letting out his signature laugh, which he knew annoyed her.

"Alright, Detective, I'll only flirt with you when we are alone," he specified playfully. "May I pick you up soon, then? You'll need to pack up your belongings first."

"You just can't stand the idea of me being alone with Barry," Iris claimed with a snort. "But fine, come in ten minutes, I don't want to give Barry or myself the time to change our minds about bunking with you."

Neither did he.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to Zoom's secret base next chapter! If you like the Frost/Iris interactions last time, you'll like chapter 14!


	14. Part 4_Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little action in the training room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun writing most of this chapter, so I hope you'll enjoy it too!

When Barry had gone to sleep the previous night, he had imagined that the highlight of his morning would be a quiet if a bit awkward breakfast with Iris in the privacy of his floor.

Instead he woke up to Reverb breaching into the guest bedroom he had slept in for the first time.

"Dude, I don't think you want to miss this," his teammate explained when Barry asked what the hell he was doing there.

"Miss what?" the speedster questioned once he'd taken a long second to clear the cobwebs of sleep.

"Academy-trained Detective Iris West vs. "I'm too good for training" Crystal Frost!" Reverb announced as he opened another breach and hoped into it.

By the time the breach blinked out of existence, Barry had suited up and was aligning his eye with the retina scanner opening the monitoring hub of the training room.

From there, Barry had an invisible front row view to the upcoming sparring match.

Crystal was readying into an offensive stance, holding two batons the same way she fought with her icicles when she was forced into close-range combat.

She sported her usual outfit: a strapless leather top and high waisted pants. Because she had healing powers—intermittent, unlike Barry's continual ones—Crystal refused to wear any of the tactical gear that Cisco painstakingly made for the team. 

She was barefoot, which as the owner of the building Barry appreciated because her and Siren's high heels occasionally damaged the most superficial sensors and compartments embedded into the floor of the training room.

Barry was surprised to see Plastique standing next to Reverb and Black Siren at the edges of the sparring ground.

The last time Zoom had heard from Bette, which was six weeks ago, she was on a solo mission in Canada.

The last person in the room, facing Frost, was Iris—

Good lord, _what_ was she wearing?

Barry was used to Detective West being covered from head to toe. In fact, she was the only cop at CCPD who didn't wear short sleeves during the suffocating summer months, opting instead for the lighter breathable fabric of the uniform.

(Barry himself wore long sleeves all year long because wearing bow ties with short sleeves would make him look like a child.)

So, seeing Iris' whole left arm, her toned stomach and the side of her legs in full display was a bit...Yeah.

Actually, once he focused on the clothes rather than the woman who was wearing them, the speedster realized that they were borrowed from one of his female teammates.

That one shoulder long-sleeved sports brassiere was made of military grade microfiber and state of the art waterproof coating. Both Black Siren and Plastique owned a variation of that top. They usually complemented the garment with pliable bulletproof shoulder and arm sleeves when they made appearances at some black market events.

And those lose pants with outrageous slits on the side were the new rave amongst hipster yogis in Central City. It was made of the lightest breathable cotton that limited sweating. That definitely came from Laurel's wardrobe because she taught a power yoga class at the women's center she volunteered at.

While Iris' outfit wouldn't be adequate for a field mission, it was totally appropriate for a training session, especially since she was wearing the flat-sole sensors-compatible slippers that Cisco and Barry nagged the other team members to wear while training so they could more accurately assess everyone's physical performance.

The detective had chosen a retractable stick as her weapon of choice. Interesting.

"Reminder of the rules for this sparring match," Reverb announced with a dramatic raise of his arm before he walked between Crystal and Iris. "No powers, no biting, no pulling...Actually, feel free to pull each other's hair, I don't need competition for the best-looking tresses here."

"Are you done?" Frost asked with her menacing voice.

"Yeah, whatever, may the odds be in your favor and all that," the breacher declared as he stepped away from the two opponents.

"Start in five," Siren counted down, "four...three...two...one...Now!"

Barry had the reflex to activate all the sensors of the floor and walls, as well as the kinetic analysis program of the cameras.

Frost always relied on her ice powers to train and fight, so this was a golden opportunity for the team leader to record a proper hand-to-hand combat performance from her.

Zoom immediately hoped that this session would encourage the meta-human to train for close-range combat more often, because within a minute of sparring Iris proved to be the more skilled fighter of the two women by a wide margin.

The detective didn't even use the stick much; her excellent footwork insured that she was always half a step ahead of Crystal, allowing her to dodge the attacks and destabilize the meta-human with well-placed kicks. Barry shook his head at how many openings Frost had.

The most impressive moment of the sparring session came when Frost feinted to the right but then brought both arms down and back up in a quick circular motion to hit Iris with both batons from the left.

The detective parried the blow by holding her stick horizontally with both hands, and everyone gasped at the loud noise of the impact between the weapons. 

If the batons had hit Iris, at best she would've sported nasty bruises for days, but considering that Crystal _never_ held back her strength a serious injury would've been more likely. 

"Okay that's enough," Zoom announced through the speakers, his disembodied voice surprising everyone except Reverb.

"We just got started!" Frost complained as she opened her arms wide.

"Detective West could've wiped the floor with your white hair at least three times the first thirty seconds," Bette informed her with a raised eyebrow. "You really should train for close combat more often. With Mercury Labs power-dampening signal fully operational, it's only a question of time before our favorite shopping stores install their own. We can't rely solely on our powers anymore, not now that Eiling is building an army of enhanced soldiers.

"An army isn't what I'd worry about if those enhanced people all go rogue like Bootleg," Iris pointed out as she lowered her stick and turned around to narrow her eyes at the tinted window behind which Barry was observing the room.

"Are you going to hide there all morning, or are you going to show me that this team's leader is worth something without his speed?" She challenged cheekily.

Reverb and Siren let out a long "ooooooh" and made it impossible for Barry to turn her down.

So much for his quiet morning.

"This is not how I imagined our first round of fun activities, Detective," he joked after he phased out of the hub into the training room.

"Wait, wait, let me make sure we have this on tape," Reverb requested as he jogged towards the door of the monitoring hub.

"No!" Both Barry and Iris stopped him.

"Seriously? Not fun," the breacher whined as he went back to stand by the other spectators.

"I wouldn't want you to be embarrassed about losing to a thief, after all," Zoom taunted the cop as he eyed the weapon shelf across the room.

The retractable stick _was_ Barry's favorite weapon for close range combat, but from the little he had just seen he couldn't tell if he could best Iris with it. Her short stature might give her an advantage.

He could use the blunt-edged knives that bled neon paint upon contact, or the chain, but the brass knuckles were out of question. 

"Actually," Iris said as she threw her stick to the side. "How about we fight without weapons?" She proposed with a smirk.

For real?

"I can't guarantee that I won't cheat with my powers," he warned.

He couldn't wear his power-suppressing smartwatch, he needed to keep his face vibrating.

"If you do, you lose by forfeit," the cop decided, and he could only nod his ascent.

A faint alarm resonated in the general com system.

Low volume, low pitch. Either someone was trespassing on his property or a crow or squirrel had triggered a sensor outside. Or the military had found his secret base, but that was very unlikely. The tachyon device didn't have a tracker—it _couldn't_ have one due to its nature.

"We got this, boss," Reverb assured as he opened a breach through which he, Siren and Plastique exited the training room.

"Avenge me, Zoom," Crystal demanded as she walked towards the door leading to the locker room—she wanted to get her boots first, Barry imagined, "our reputation as meta-humans is at stake."

The speedster rolled his eyes at the exaggeration of the claim, then stared at Iris who was frowning at him.

"You're going to let them handle that situation without you?" The detective asked.

"It's not an emergency," he assured her with a shrug. "Do you think that I babysit them 24/7? They were handling themselves way before they joined my team."

"Yeah, and back then they were hurting people on top of stealing," the cop reminded him as she poked him with a finger. "That redhead is Bette Sans Souci, isn't she? She's a _terrorist_!"

"Former terrorist," Barry corrected with his modified voice as he raised his hand to grab her wrist. "She's advocating for Quebec's independence peacefully now."

Iris pushed his hand aside and thrust her hand forward to slam its heel on his solar plexus.

"Hey, we didn't agree on starting sparring _now_," the speedster complained with a harsh exhale as he regained his balance.

Thank goodness for his healing powers, that hit would've bruised his sensitive skin.

"Well now you know," the detective drawled as she adopted a defensive stance.

Barry contained a sigh of frustration. They were going on a date tonight, so he could endure a few shoves for now.

Only the sparring session quickly evolved from a few shoves to legitimate punches and kick. By the time Zoom's teammates returned, there was a real show to watch.

Realistically, Barry could've bested Iris more times than she could've knocked him down. She was agile and strong, but he was faster and stronger.

By making his attacks half a second slower and letting one out of three of her hits land, he evened out her odds to win the match.

To her credit, she eventually figured out that he was going easy on her.

"How could you evade my previous punches but not see this one coming?" The cop questioned breathlessly as she swiftly ducked under his arm to evade a hook, and before Zoom could turn around to face her again she kicked him behind the knee.

Ow. He shouldn't have slowed down for that one.

He regretted his delayed reaction even more when he turned around and straightened back up because Iris unexpectedly charged at him and took him down by wrapping her legs around his middle and twisting _hard_.

Alright, _no_, Zoom wasn't going let a skilled but _normal_ human knock him on his back in front of the dangerous meta-humans he had bested effortlessly (except Frost, ironically).

So he used the momentum of their fall to roll on top of Iris and mindlessly grabbed her wrists to pin her arms overhead.

Reverb and Frost's cheers were drowned out when Barry's powers kicked in without his command to slow everything down—a reflex that had saved his life the few times he had crumbled to the ground in the middle of armed opponents.

Barry blinked then furiously blushed as he took in Iris: her beautiful eyes wide with surprise, her cheeks flushed, her lips slightly parted...And was it crazy that he wanted to lick the sweat pasting her hair to her temples?

And the way he had stretched her arms made her arch her back below him—

_No, Bartholomew Henry Allen, you will _not_ look at her chest!_

The speedster let go and removed himself from the detective before time returned to normal, rolling to standing as the sound of her shocked grunt hit the air.

"Hey, why did you use your powers? You were winning!" Reverb shouted disapprovingly.

Iris was clearly wondering the same as she sat up and frowned up at him.

Before she could make any comment, an alarm on her smartwatch went off.

"Gotta go," she told no one in particular as she hopped to her feet.

"What? Where?" Zoom asked.

"The precinct?" She answered, as confused as he was. "I have a shooting to report, and I'm definitely corroborating Lawton's statement that you abducted me, otherwise I'd get in trouble for leaving a crime scene before backup showed up."

"Right," the speedster acknowledged, managing not to rub the back of his neck in a way that screamed _Barry Allen_.

"It's still early, though," he pointed out with a glance at the clock.

A quarter past six. Hopefully Iris had spent a good first night in her guest bedroom.

"Well, I want to have breakfast with Barry," the detective let him know as she wiped sweat off her brow. "He's always late so I better wake him up now and get food ready. I'm allowed to use your kitchen right? I eyed some nice food in your fridges, _plural_, last night."

"Sure, help yourself," Zoom replied flatly as she shuffled out of the room.

Uh.

Iris was going to make him _breakfast_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WestAllen breakfast next! I promise that this Iris can cook, no worries!  
Introducing another member of the team next chapter. Guess who that is?


	15. Part 4_Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry's morning with Iris is quiet until it's not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How's your week going guys? What did you think of 6x01?

The hour Barry spent with Iris out of his suit at the breakfast table was simply _lovely_.

Everything she made tasted great, from the fluffy pancakes to the loaded chickpea omelet to the English muffins to the colorful smoothie—he could very possibly get full from all the food.

"Either Zoom is vegetarian or he has a third fridge for his meats hidden in another room, sorry," the detective casually apologized as she stacked up her plate with pancakes after handing him his plate.

Oh, right.

"With an accelerated metabolism he likely cannot efficiently absorb animal proteins and other nutrients," he informed her as he sipped on his smoothie.

Overdosing on carbs helped him keep his fat percentage normal. His accelerated cell regeneration used so much of his lipids supply that he had gained a six pack overnight.

Most days Barry obtained the majority of his calories from those tasteless energy bars Caitlin had created for him. Eating all his calories from food only was...Not impossible, but inconvenient.

Which was why he valued breakfast so much. It was the only meal he took the time to sit down for and truly enjoy.

And enjoy it, he did, despite the fumbling and stuttering he did as he made small talk with Iris.

It was so very domestic, and seeing her smile so widely and freely at him, and that mischievous glint in her brown eyes when she stared at him...Why had he waited so long to ask her out?

(He'd thought that his long-time crush would never see him as more than a colleague, that's why.)

"So, you still haven't told me where we're going," Iris reminded him as the two of them rinsed out the plates and placed them in the dish washer.

"Oh, it's that Italian place downtown," Barry informed vaguely.

"Barry, there are dozens of Italian places downtown," the detective pointed out with narrowed eyes as she dried her hands and crossed her arms to keep staring at him.

"True," he confirmed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck as he held her gaze.

Barry was aware that Detective Iris West was intimidating to most people. When she gave them that look, they either gave her what she asked for or ran away.

The CSI was very much intimidated by the cop, but he was also very much in love with her, so he cherished every single look she spared him. That glare couldn't make him talk. He wanted to keep the surprise. 

"At least tell me what the dress code is here," she requested. "Casual, casual chic, or do I get to doll up? I brought a few dresses that were catching dust in my closet."

The speedster hadn't even thought about what to wear. He'd just wanted the best dining experience for their first date.

"Umm, yeah," he answered. "It's on the more formal side."

She smiled so widely that Barry had to squint his eyes to not get blinded by her radiance.

"I can't wait," she confessed giddily as she walked towards the door, or was she walking towards him?

The peck Iris planted on his lips didn't register until she leaned away, her hands on his arms for support as she balanced on her tiptoes.

"Iris," he blurted out stupidly, very dazed and grateful that his powers hadn't kicked in at the unexpected move.

"Yes, Barry?" She answered as she tilted her head to the side, her silky hair sliding over one shoulder, leaving one side of her neck exposed.

Was she driving him crazy on purpose?

"We have a date, I mean tonight, not now...We don't—" he tried to say something, and frankly he didn't know what exactly.

But she wasn't the best detective of CCPD for nothing. She nodded her understanding. 

"Alright," she conceded as she lowered to the soles of her boots and wiped invisible dust from his shoulders. "After the date, then," she added decisively.

After the date, _what_? More kissing?

"Well, I should go first," she declared as she stepped back and away from him, giving the kitchen and breakfast table one last inspection and Barry followed her gaze to find everything clean.

He appreciated her tidiness. He kept his floor off-limits because most of his teammates were anything but tidy. He wasn't a tidy person either, but he had superspeed so cleaning took very little real time.

"It's still early for you to clock-in, so I'll head to the precinct first," Iris announced as she pulled a hair tie from her pocket and gathered her hair into a casual low bun.

It alarmed Barry that he was developing an obsession for her neck.

When she caught him staring, he almost used his speed to run away. He endured the knowing smile on her lips and the blood flowing into his cheeks.

"See you this evening?" the detective asked as she stepped backwards towards the door. "We should meet there separately, I don't want Zoom to ruin it by speeding us there together."

"Of course," he agreed absentmindedly, his eyes on her feet to make sure that he could catch her in case she tripped...

Wait, no, he was Barry right now, he couldn't use his speed if she fell. And of course Iris wasn't a klutz like him, so she made it out of the door safely.

The speedster took a few calming breaths, exited the room himself and went to his guest room at normal speed, then sped out, changed into his suit and waited at Iris' door.

"How did you know that I was looking for you?" The cop questioned, glancing suspiciously at her smartwatch.

"I'm always hoping that you're looking for me, Detective," he admitted cheekily, chuckling at her subsequent eyeroll.

She walked away from him, and he followed patiently at normal speed.

"Actually, I wanted to let you know that I'm going to visit Dr. Wells later on," he told her. "Bootleg hasn't been active in almost a week now, and the only way we can catch him is if we find him first. I believe that finding Jesse Wells will lead us to him."

"You think he'll talk to you?" The cop questioned, her skepticism clear on her face. "You steal labs like his for a living!"

"I'd like to believe that any parent would sign a pact with the devil to get their child back safe and sound," Zoom argued with a shrug.

"I wouldn't call you the devil, but fair point," Iris conceded as the speedster called the elevator. 

He let silence settle between them on the short ride down, and only spoke again when they reached the opaque double doors of the monitoring room. 

"And what would you call me, Detective?" He asked out loud just as he took Iris key card from her hand to slot it in the door reader. It took ten seconds for someone inside to unlock the sliding doors.

Zoom walked in first after handing Iris her card back, grinning in reaction to the cop narrowing her eyes at him in annoyance.

"Zoom, darling!" A familiar voice called from one of the computers. "Oh, I've missed that suit, or more specifically the body in...What the hell is _she_ doing here?"

It was Barry's turn to narrow his eyes in annoyance.

Hartley Rathaway, a.k.a Pied Piper.

Heir of the Rathaway real estate empire, mechanical engineering genius, the most eligible bachelor among Central City one percent. 

If one was a gay man who could tolerate his arrogance, attention-seeking attitude, his secret criminal activity, and his obsession for the Dark Speedster.

"Nice seeing you again Piper," Zoom lied without hiding his dishonesty. "I'm surprised that Reverb let you in," he added as he glared at the breacher.

Hartley was welcome to his secret base as long as Zoom was there himself and _aware_ that he was coming. He was a guest at best and never got to stay the night unless he was okay with the couch in the lounge. Which he never was.

"Desperate times, man," Reverb defended. "And you're the one who said that he was allowed in!"

Barry let out a long sigh.

Sometimes the team needed to do some recon before a heist, and the best way to do so was to enter the place invited. There was not an art gallery, bank, museum or jewelry store whose doors were closed to the Rathaways, so Hartley _was_ a useful if volatile member of the team. He had even helped Barry forge the couple fake identities he connected to his anonymous donations.

"'She' is a _cop_ who could cuff you anytime," Iris answered Rathaway's question coldly. "And who are _you_? Must not be important if I can't recognize you even with that ridiculous costume."

"You know Detective West, I'm liking you more and more," Barry heard Reverb say as he eyed Piper's cheeks redden underneath his hood.

"You refuse to give _me_ even an _entry code_ to your main floor_,_" the billionaire complained behind gritted teeth as he eyed the card in detective's hand, "but a _copper_ gets a keycard to the _building_? What the hell, Zoom!"

"Your secret base is twice as large is mine," Zoom pointed out flatly as he stood tall and crossed his arms—rolling his eyes when Rathaway checked him out—"I can't give you a permanent seat here because your _loyalties_ lay with yourself first. Also, Detective West got a hit on her head for getting involved with me. I owe her."

"Someone wants her dead?" The billionaire reiterated, the wide eyes behind his bright googles directed at Iris.

Barry simply nodded his confirmation.

"_Good_!" Piper exclaimed with a nod of his own and a sneer at Iris. "I can't tell you how many partners I've lost because some of their buyers or clients got arrested by her and her partner. It was time someone let her know that you don't mess up with the crime lords of Central City with impunity."

"I _am_ a crime lord of Central City," Zoom reminded his associate as evenly as he could, "and Detective West is working on clearing _my_ name from false murder charges. If any of your partners is involved in this, get new ones."

He let the implied threat sink in before looking at Reverb and Siren, ignoring the intense stares from Piper in front of him and Iris at his back.

"Any lead on those shooters?" He asked them calmly.

"We don't have any, but _he_ might," the breacher claimed with a jerked of his chin towards Hartley.

"What?" Piper reacted. "_That_ is why you stultus called me in, to do your work? You said that Zoom wanted to see me!"

"If you have info on who shot the cops who were dispatched to Heidon last night, I _do_ want to see you," the speedster assured.

"I was there last night, yeah," the rich heir admitted. "The shooters you're looking for? Ruined my date with Syndney Palmer."

"Sydney Palmer isn't gay," Siren argued with a skeptical look at the rich heir.

"No, he's pan, which is fine, nobody's perfect," Piper countered.

"Piper," Zoom called out.

"Yes, I know their identities, bien sûr chéri, but what are you willing to pay for that piece of information?"

The speedster sighed, again. 

Hartley was rich, both from his family fortune and his own activity on the black market. He didn't need money or expensive gifts.

"I'm not going on a date with you," the speedster warned his occasional teammate.

"Of course not, you'd lose your allure," the sound meta agreed. "But I need a decoy to pin down one of my father's CFOs for embezzlement. Any chance that I can tempt the generous Jay Garrick to make a risky investment?"

"Jay Garrick?" Iris spoke for the first time in a while, making Barry turn around to stare at her.

Her eyes were wide and her lips parted in surprise.

"Why would someone from the working class know that name?" Rathaway interrogated with amusement, but Barry wasn't amused.

One of his covers just got blown.

"That's the biggest donor of the CCWYC and General Hospital," the cop asserted. "At least that's the alias I found behind the big checks they donate yearly, and I had to ask for a lot of favors to even get that name. I thought that Jay Garrick was a real name..."

"Hey, I'm supposed to drop you at the precinct," the speedster attempted to change subject.

Iris seemed too shocked still to protest when he picked her up in his arms and sped out of the base to drop her at the parking lot of the CCPD.

"All this time you've been donating the money that you steal?" The detective managed to say when he stepped back from her.

"I have to go get your CSI too, want to wait for him, or?" Zoom deflected.

"Zoom!" Iris's voice stopped him when he turned his back to her.

He held his sigh this time.

"What?" He asked quietly.

"I don't understand," she told him as she walked around to stand in front of him even though she couldn't see his face. "All this time I've assumed...You've _let me_ think that you were a common thief—"

"I'm _not_ common, I have super speed," the Dark Speedster pointed out. "That's why you haven't been able to catch me and get your promotion, remember?"

She didn't take the bait.

"This discussion isn't over," she declared pointedly. "How am I supposed to get back to your place, by the way?"

"Use the paging function of the smartwatch to contact Reverb," he instructed. "He'll page you back a location where he'll open a breach. You'll have to step into the breach during the first twenty seconds of the exact minute he gives you."

"Got it," Iris consented as she checked out the watch.

Barry could tell that she was still, not _upset_, but shocked by the information that he was Jay Garrick.

His mind was still on the fact that people other than McMillan had a grudge against her—he didn't even know that Rathaway knew Iris by _face!_

"Iris," he called out, and she looked up at him.

He wished he could show his eyes to add weight to his next words.

"You're a great cop," he reminded her. "You're strong and resourceful, and you have a great instinct...The second that you feel uns—compromised, you call _me_. Press the power button of the watch three times to activate the tracker so I know where you are. It works underground too."

The detective stared at his blurry face for a moment before nodding again, slowly this time.

"Now don't let Barry be late, the Captain might not let him take his leave otherwise," she said with levity. "I have to find Floyd before he thinks that I'm still your hostage."

"I wish," Zoom mumbled to himself before speeding away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The date is next, FINALLY I know! But Zoom talking to Dr. Wells will be first.
> 
> About 6x01: solid episode, as a fan of the show it was an exciting season premiere. As a WestAllen fan...Yeah, I think the show runners have given up on the romance. Did Barry really said "so?" when Caitlin reminded him that Iris almost got swallowed into a black hole? That event should've gotten him out of his 'pretend that everything is okay' mindset in a second flat. His wife almost died, and they didn't even get a 'thank goodness you're okay' hug? (Watch it be a deleted scene lol)
> 
> That back-to-front hug before The Monitor showed up was cute, and they got to talk about grieving Nora right away (thank goodness) but I think our OTP is done kissing like they're in love on screen. Hopefully I'm jinxing it.


	16. Part 4_Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zoom visits Dr. Wells; Barry and Iris go on a date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter of part 4! I'm confident that there will be six parts total. The last part will only have two chapters, hence the chapter count of 22.

"You," Harrison Wells said flatly as he walked into his office, where Zoom had been waiting for five minutes.

"Hello Dr. Wells," the speedster greeted calmly.

"What do you want?" The theoretical physicist asked as he got to his desk, placing his cup of coffee on a stained coaster before standing by his window. 

Oh, he was using the sunlight to partially hide his face. Evening out the field, Barry supposed.

"I heard that you stole something from one of Tina's research facilities," Wells resumed. "Are you here to steal from me too? Your friend with the powerful scream came ten days ago and didn't seem to find what she was looking for despite hacking into my _ personal _ file."

Barry hadn't thought that anyone would check the surveillance feed if nothing had been stolen. But then Dr. Wells had a missing daughter, his vigilance was normal.

"I'm here to discuss what my 'friend' Black Siren found in your account," the speedster admitted. "Your daughter Jesse is like me. She's a speedster."

"I don't know what you're talking about and I don't think that you do yourself," the famous scientist claimed, an angry edge in his voice.

"Dr. Wells, I'm using precious time to be here that I'd rather spend protecting someone I deeply care about," Barry confessed. "I took precautions not to leave a trace of my visit here. I came from the sewers, which by the way congratulations on your minimal carbon footprint, you have the cleanest waste system of all private labs in this country. I also turned off every device in this room because I'm scrambling all signals coming in and out of here. So if you're worried about being watched or listened to, rest assured that no one will know about this other than you, me, and my trustworthy associates."

"You're a thief, I'm not sure that we agree on the definition of trustworthiness," Dr. Wells commented.

That was humor, so Barry knew that he was making progress.

"A week ago a speedster tried to suck off all my speed using a device that closely resembles the one I stole from Mercury Labs," Zoom shared. "I got lucky to have my teammates get me out of that man's reach, but I suspect that Jesse wasn't as lucky."

Dr. Wells' tense shoulders deflated.

"She was on her way back from Keystone City when her tracker went off," the physicist informed quietly.

"Keystone City?" Barry repeated. "There's a speedster vigilante there, is that a coincidence?"

"No," Wells answered. "I told her not to go, but she wanted help, _ guidance _ from someone who understood what she was going through. I don't even know how it went with that Flash fellow."

Barry couldn't help the guilt that surged in him that instant.

Jesse Wells had been seeking guidance from another speedster when she disappeared.

Barry was more experienced than The Flash, he could've helped Jesse. He could've trained her, he had all the equipment and regimen figured out for that, and he _ would _ have helped if she'd asked him.

But she hadn't, likely because he was a _ thief _.

Iris' words echoed in his mind, sharpening his guilt.

_ I wish Zoom had remained a vigilante. He's not like Frost or Black Siren...He's a good man. He could have inspired other meta-humans… _

If he'd remained a vigilante, Jesse Wells would have consulted him instead of The Flash, and wouldn't have been caught by Bootleg.

This was his fault. A rogue super soldier was holding an innocent meta-human because of him. For the past two years, Barry had tried his hardest to keep meta-humans off the streets one way or another, yet he had failed a fellow _ speedster _.

"Your eyes are lighting up, is that a good or a bad thing?" Dr. Wells' concerned voice brought him back to the present. 

"Apologies, it's nothing," Zoom lied as he calmed down. "So Jesse wasn't in Central City proper when she vanished. This helps. We've been limiting our search to the city's borders."

"You've been looking for my daughter?" The older man reiterated. "Why?"

"To find that false speedster," Barry answered truthfully. "He's not a meta-human, he's been enhanced artificially. A military pet project gone wrong, and it seems that Dr. McGee has been contributing to it with her tachyon device."

"No," Dr. Wells breathed out, his knees giving up a bit.

"Dr. Wells?" Zoom called out, staying rooted in place though he itched to offer his support to the physicist.

"How could Tina do this?" Wells asked himself as he shuffled to his desk and collapsed onto his armchair.

"Dr. Wells," the speedster called again.

The older man removed his glasses and leaned his head back as he rubbed a hand over his face.

After a minute of silence, the theoretical physicist swiveled his chair around to face Zoom.

"When Jesse and I figured out that she was a meta-human, I made her wear a power-suppressing device," Wells confessed. "I didn't want her to hurt herself or others with her powers. When rumors about another speedster in Central City started circulating, we hoped to get ideas on how to help her navigate her life with powers. But when we finally got a name about that other speedster…"

"You learned that he was a criminal and didn't want anything to do with him," Barry completed the sentence.

"I'm a physicist," the older man stated, "not a geneticist, so the fine details of what was happening to my daughter were beyond my understanding. I turned to Tina because she has a group of brilliant researchers who are working on understanding the genetics behind meta-human powers. The tachyon device is basically _my_ idea. I brushed the subject of _ physically _ taking away a speedster's speed, and Tina promised to look into it. Had I known…"

The physicist let out a long sigh before peering at Zoom.

"Understand that I had no idea that the tachyon device would be used against you. I wanted to keep my daughter safe. I had made the alarming observation that all meta-humans who had come out of hiding had turned into criminals, so I wanted her powers gone before they could turn her into an outlaw too. I would've kept Jesse wearing the power-suppressing device forever if she hadn't gotten involved in a serious car accident."

Barry couldn't imagine how devastating that had been for a man who had already lost his wife in a car accident.

"Jesse would've died if not for her accelerated cellular regeneration," Dr. Wells asserted with another sigh. "From then on, it was impossible to convince her not to use her powers. She agreed to wear her suppressor in public as long as I helped her figure out how to control her powers herself in private. I was so scared to see her change, but then we heard about The Flash in Keystone City. A speedster like her, but not a criminal. A vigilante who works closely with the police, who respects the law as much as possible and stops other meta-humans from harming innocents."

It had also been a relief for Barry to know that there was a meta-human who used his powers for the greater good. One of these days he'd like to have a chat with the kid.

"On the one hand, I was relieved that my theory on the meta gene turning people evil was not fully supported," Dr. Wells kept going. "On the other hand, there was this kid giving _ my _ kid ideas about becoming a superhero. I wasn't happy about Jesse's admiration for the lad, and as I said earlier I didn't want her to meet him, but she went anyway. We had a big disagreement on the matter before she left. I haven't seen my daughter ever since. The last medical reports I received about her showed that she's normal now, but I can't find any consolation in that. If she's normal, that means that she's _ vulnerable _ in the hands of a serial killer."

"He needs her alive and well," Barry tried to reassure the father. "The speedster wasn't able to collect my stolen speed, so he will need Jesse to recover hers for him to steal it again. I will find your daughter and bring her home safe and sound, Dr. Wells, you have my word."

The intense gaze the physicist gave him didn't really tell him if his words had been well received, but Barry couldn't do anything about it.

Then an idea seemed to pop up in the older man's brilliant mind, because his eyes widened and his gaze on the speedster took a different intensity.

"You've never stolen from _ me _," Dr. Wells stated carefully. "That fact came up when Jesse thought of talking to you despite your track record. She said that you didn't steal from S.T.A.R. Labs because we're comfortable but not swimming in money like the other labs. But that's not quite it, is it?"

Barry remained very still and very quiet, not willing to give anything that could reveal his identity.

He had a personal connection to Dr. Wells through Caitlin, Ronnie and Cisco. All three metas had the greatest respect for their employer. That wasn't the reason why Zoom didn't steal from Dr. Wells, but it was a lead to his identity.

"You don't steal from me because I don't make anti-meta tech," the physicist shared his hypothesis. "Not _anymore_. The ones I did make years ago, I donated to the police to help them arrest meta-human criminals. I stopped making meta tech because all the funding goes into products that exploit meta-human powers or meta-humans themselves rather than just suppress their powers. I want no association with people who want to control meta-humans, because those tend to see them not as human beings but as freaks to collect like animal trophies. People who would hurt my _daughter_. You've stolen from Tina a lot, and now I understand why: she makes a lot of those harmful meta-tech, like the meta-tranquilizer or this tachyon device."

Barry didn't confirm or deny anything, but the theoretical physicist didn't need his contribution.

"You're _protecting_ yourself and other metas from harm by getting that kind of harmful meta-tech off the market. I blindly assumed that you sold all your stolen goods back into the black market, but now I know that you don't. Many twisted people would pay a fortune to possess that tech, and if you sold it you wouldn't need to steal jewelry and art, you'd be settled for life with just the few meta tech items you've stolen."

It was disconcerting, to say the least, that someone who didn't know Barry personally had figured out his motives so swiftly. But Harrison Wells was a genius, so the chances of someone else figuring out Zoom's ultimate goal were thin.

"I still don't condone your criminal activity," Dr. Wells made clear, "but I admit that I was wrong about you. You're not a bad guy, Zoom. And I trust that you have the best intentions in your search for my daughter. Please find her. Find her and bring her home."

"As fast as I can, Dr. Wells," Barry promised with a nod. "I'll disable my signal disruptor remotely once I'm out of the building. Do I have your permission to reactivate it if I need to talk to you again?"

"You do," the physicist agreed. 

After that, Barry phased through the walls along the elevator tracks to reach the lowest levels of the building. From there he sped to the sewers and left Dr. Wells' property incognito.

* * *

"Wow, you look...Stunning," Barry complimented as clearly as he could with his brain slightly incapacitated by the sight, no, _ vision _, across the restaurant table.

Iris West in red was breathtaking, and it shouldn't be a surprise. The color was bold just like her; it was the color of the red rose he'd gifted her as they met in front of 'Maggiore'; it was the color of blood, of strength and power, and Iris was strong and powerful.

The cut of her dress had threatened to boil Barry's blood dry and knock out all his strength: the collar was loose and dipped low on her chest, revealing a hint of her cleavage. From there the dress espoused Iris' form snugly, only loosening again past her thighs to swirl around her and hover a mere inch from the floor, the toenails on her opened toe gold pumps peeking out. The dress had long sleeves, so Barry had naively believed that Iris was almost completely covered, a contrast to how she was dressed in the morning. 

But when Barry had stood behind the chair he had pulled out for her, he was given the best vantage point to see the roll of the toned muscles on Iris' _ naked _ back as she lowered herself to her seat.

"You clean up very nicely yourself, Barry," Iris replied sweetly as their waiter arrived.

Eager to have the restaurant employee leave so he could give all his attention to Iris, Barry dismissively ordered a bottle of red he was familiar with and agreed on a starter of bruschetta until they decided on their meals.

He felt his cheeks flush when Iris lifted an eyebrow at him once the waiter walked away after a quick bow.

He hadn't let her decide what _ she _ wanted for drinks and starters.

"Oh dear, I didn't mean to…I'm so sorry Detective!" He rushed to apologize as discreetly as he could—the restaurant was full, as reservations were made months in advance. 

(Zoom _ now _ owed a favor to the hacker.)

"I'll accept your apologies if you do me the favor of only calling me Iris tonight," the gorgeous woman proposed.

"Right! Of course...Anything you want, Det—Iris," Barry stuttered quietly.

"It's not to make you uncomfortable," Iris promised. "It's the opposite, actually. We never interacted back at CC High, so I feel like I don't know you at all, Barry Allen. You're a brilliant CSI working for CCPD, but that's common knowledge. I'd like to know more about you as a person."

"Oh," he reacted in a daze, and was given time to sort his mind when the server returned with the bruschetta and the wine. 

Barry eyed Iris as she watched the waiter present and open the bottle, and wondered what she wanted to know about him as he gave the wine a taste—not exactly what his taste buds remembered, but this bottle was from a much different cellar than his parents favored, it was to be expected.

Surprisingly, Iris deferred to him for her first course, so he picked the ravioli dish his mother got the only other time he had dined at this restaurant. He ordered cacio e pepe for himself, which seemed to be the dish with the highest amount of carbs. All that cheese, though. Good thing his heart burns lasted only minutes.

"You don't stutter when you talk to him," Iris commented evenly.

"Who?" Barry asked, confused.

"The waiter," she specified. "This is the first time outside of work that I see you so…Smooth, sure of yourself. You barely looked at the menu and wine list but you knew what to order. Have you been here before?"

"Once, a few years ago with my parents," Barry admitted.

Iris opened her lips—painted a very enticing shade of dark red, 'cherry' maybe?—but closed them before slightly shaking her head, making the ribbons of curly hair framing her face flutter.

"What is it?" the young man questioned.

"I don't want to interrogate you as if you were a case I'm trying to solve," she answered sheepishly. "I want you to volunteer any piece of information about you that you're okay sharing."

That was a change from what Barry had experienced in college. His dates and girlfriends had sometimes overwhelmed him with questions he never seemed to answer right.

"I might need some prompting, actually," he confessed. "I do want you to, um, know me more...Just like I'd like to know you more, Iris, but I don't know where to start."

His date gave him a dazzling smile at that, which reassured him that he'd said the right thing this time.

"Let's say that I'm curious about the fact that you're so comfortable in a four star restaurant," Iris commented calmly. "What can you tell me?"

"Ah," Barry exclaimed softly before answering, unsure if the topic of his privileged life was appropriate for a first date.

"My parents took me to a lot of formal dinners, growing up. I never felt like I, I don't know…Like I fit in, you know—but I went to so many of them that I got used to the scene. To be frank, it's better…So much better to dine with only one other person. I don't have to worry about being polite to a dozen strangers, following just as many threads of conversation while remembering my table etiquette at the same time. It's exhausting."

He felt ridiculously proud when Iris giggled when he mock-wiped his forehead.

"So what you're saying," Iris said once she calmed down, "is that we need to go on at least ten? Twenty dates? Before you get to talk to me as smoothly as you did with the waiter?"

Barry blushed and blinked at his date, whose eyes were getting that mischievous glint he'd almost tripped over this morning.

"I don't—know if I…Maybe," Barry replied before biting into his toast.

He managed to answer more straightforward questions as they enjoyed their meal: favorite color, red for him and surprisingly emerald for her; ideal pet, turtle for her and ball python for him—Barry was pleasantly surprised that they both liked reptiles, but Iris warned against him actually getting a snake if he wanted her to visit his apartment again—most romantic setting, and Iris made them answer at the same time for that one.

"Under the stars," Barry answered just as Iris said "out on a full moon."

They silently stared at each other for half a minute.

"The conditions are, uh, not mutually exclusive," the blushing young man pointed out quietly. 

"I'd say, yeah," his gorgeous date replied, looking more dazed than embarrassed. "Oh wait, isn't the moon full tonight?"

"That was two days ago, Barry corrected her with a smile between bites of his cheesy tortellini.

"Well, it's full enough still, _ and _ the stars are out, so we can still kiss to our hearts' content," Iris decided with a shrug.

Barry knew he was about to choke on his pasta in shock, and thankfully Iris' eyes weren't on him at that moment, so he slowed down time to cough it out.

The rest of the dinner went without any major hitch.

The restaurant was close to Barry's favorite park in all of Central City. It had a Japanese style pond and bridge. Iris had never been to it and eagerly agreed to go for stroll there. Other groups of people were enjoying the night at the park, most of them couples just like them.

It was too early in the year for fireflies, but the clear sky offered enough of a spectacle to the pair as they gazed at the waning moon and its reflection on the surface of the pond. 

Despite the chilly breeze, Iris didn't put her coat back on, so Barry stepped closer to her to share his abnormally high body heat. 

He held his breath when she sneaked her free arm around his waist, and released it slowly before turning to face her as she did the same.

Iris was breathtaking under any lighting, but she was outright dreamy under the moonlight. Barry was struggling to suppress his powers, his emotions were running so high. Was he really about to kiss her, in _ public_? 

Iris pointedly looked at his lips before tightening her grip on his waist, and he swallowed before closing his eyes, bending over just as she lifted up on her tiptoes.

The sound of a familiar snap of lightning made the speedster lean away in surprise, his eyes opening just in time to see Iris vanish as a whoosh of air whipped across his face.

"What," he heard himself say, shock making his mind blank for a second.

The faint screams around him snapped him back to awareness, and he turned around to see people pointing.

"Did you see that lightning? It was Zoom!" Someone shouted.

"He only kills gangsters," another stated confidently. "Making the streets safer, if you ask me. The cops should leave him to it instead of hunting him down!"

They didn't know. No one outside of Zoom's team knew that he was innocent of the murders, except _ Iris_, and Bootleg had just abducted her right under his nose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the cliffhanger! I should get part 5 rolling before the weekend.


	17. Part 5: Iris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris realizes that the speedster that took her away from Barry isn't Zoom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised not to leave you guys hanging!
> 
> A little flash back before the date, then Bootleg vs. Iris West! It's more talk than fight, don't worry.

**Five hours ago**

"All this security is so unnecessary," Iris mumbled as she entered the monitoring room at Zoom's base after being granted access into that part of the lab.

Doing paperwork for hours on end at CCPD had exhausted her more than being out on patrol. She was glad that at least Barry had been granted his paid leave—Page had given her crap about that but she'd managed to keep her cool and tell him that she was still working on the case, so he could relax.

Zoom had mildly irritated her by speeding her back into the building but all the way in the residential area, even though he'd just informed her that Barry was in the lab with his team.

Indeed, Barry, Reverb, Bette Sans Souci, Crystal Frost and Black Siren were looking at maps of Central City and the surrounding areas, going as far as Columbia.

"Hi," Barry in question greeted her shyly as she planted herself next to him.

"Hey," she said back with a smile.

He looked so out of place: a (not so) lanky bioscience analyst wearing suspenders and brogues, standing among costumed criminals. At least he seemed comfortable in the high tech environment.

The CSI seemed to be leading the search that the group was conducting, as he was holding the tablet from which the projected scans on the big screen came from.

To Iris, the tech in Zoom's base looked different from what they had at CCPD, more sophisticated and customized so that non-members of Zoom's team couldn’t use it easily. But of course, Barry was smart enough to learn how to use any type of tech.

A beep stood out among the fainter noises of algorithms being run and topographic images being compiled.

It was Black Siren's smartwatch.

"Gotta go," the blonde in black announced before logging out of her computer. 

"Right now?" Reverb asked, looking as surprised as the rest of the room (except Barry who just nodded, but he didn't know the meta very well so rightfully didn't care). 

"Want me to breach you to your destination?" Reverb added carefully.

"Nice try, sweetheart," the blonde replied as she kissed his hair—even tied up in a ponytail, Reverb' tresses looked lustrous, Iris was impressed—before darting out of the room.

"Any of you can just disappear like that, without notifying Zoom?" The detective asked, concerned.

Black Siren hadn't killed anyone in a while, ever since joining Zoom probably, but she still wreaked havoc wherever she went with her powerful scream. 

"By the way, where did Zoom go?" Iris asked again when no one answered her first question.

"Training," the other occupants of the room answered in unison, startling her.

"This morning's session wasn't enough?" She questioned skeptically.

"He's working on his speed," the breacher specified as he pointed at a computer screen. "Gotta be ready for when he faces Bootleg again."

Iris stepped closer to the screen and saw a camera feed of the Dark Speedster going at inhuman speed alternatively on a weird treadmill, then running around tracks that glowed and beeped every time his lightning trailed by, then over an obstacle course that explained how the thief was able to 'vanish' from buildings guarded at every level: he could run up vertical surfaces!

"How did I not know that?" Iris asked no one in particular.

"Know what?" Barry asked her as he got closer, sounding a bit nervous.

"Oh, just, look," the cop pointed when the video showed Zoom speed over two tall pillars, "he can run up vertically. I suppose you already knew that. Elementary physics and whatnot."

"With such a vast supply of kinetic energy, Zoom can even run on water," Barry said with a shrug. "But no, it's not quite elementary. There's gotta be some external force…A Speed Force of sorts, that allows him to, in some cases, create so little frictional force to the point that he can go against gravity—that gust of wind he creates as he speeds away should be a hundred times stronger, by the way—while in other cases to move so fast that the molecules that make up his body and suit can just vibrate through solid surfaces but remain in a cohesive..."

Bette Sans Soucis cleared her throat, effectively shutting up Barry but earning a glare from Iris.

The detective liked seeing the CSI's whole face light up when he talked science to her, moving his hands fast but with control, speaking without a stutter at all because he was sure of the knowledge he was sharing…

He looked ridiculously _ attractive _ in full nerd mode.

"Umm, yeah, so…Right, of course I was aware that Zoom could run up vertically," the CSI summarized with a blush and a nervous rub of his nape. "I should…We're looking for Jesse Wells, so. Um," he added up hesitantly as he pointed back at the projected screens.

"I'll see you later," Iris replied gracefully as she slid a hand down the whole length of his covered arm, sensing the shiver it elicited in him on her fingertips.

"Oh, by the way, I don't actually need to talk to Zoom," she figured out as she directed her gaze at Reverb. "Can you breach me out to the restaurant later on? I don't want Zoom messing up my hair."

_ Or seeing me in that dress _, she couldn't say out loud.

The breacher seemed ready to take off his goggles to glare at her but thought better of it.

Instead he looked back and forth between Iris and Barry.

"Sure, why the hell not?" He agreed with a shrug.

"Don't even think of telling Zoom where we're going," Iris warned. "If you do, I'll find out your real identity and arrest you."

The breacher tensed, and stared at her behind his goggles for half a minute before throwing his hands out and turning back to the computers.

"Later," a triumphant Iris told Barry as she leaned up to kiss his cheek.

She admired his long lashes as he blinked rapidly in response to her gesture.

"Don't be late, otherwise I'll be late too!" She reminded him before exiting the room.

**Now**

"What the hell, Zoom?" Iris shouted as soon as her feet found ground to anchor to. "And I told that breacher not to—"

"So you _ are _ friends with the famous Zoom," the speedster who had taken her away from her perfect date replied.

It wasn't Zoom.

The man was taller and bigger than the Dark Speedster. Though he was dressed in all black too, his mask covered his entire face (how did he breathe with his nose covered like that?).

His vibrating voice sounded different too, more menacing than the thief's. It was probably to go with the creepy Jack o'lantern mouth, which was glowing a pale blue light.

Lightning of the same color was snapping all around the serial killer, who was fortunately standing a few feet away from Iris because his stolen powers seemed to be leaking away from his body.

She stared, fighting to keep her mouth shut when realization dawned on her.

Zoom's lightning was yellow, not blue.

Why had none of the eyewitnesses told them such an important detail? Maybe they had, but she couldn’t count on anyone, especially not Floyd, to _ pay attention_!

"I'm not friends with _any_ criminal in this city," she answered the serial killer with a jut of her chin, "but I know when they're innocent of a crime they're unjustly accused of because a psychopathic _ copycat _ is passing for them."

Bootleg looked her up and down, and while Iris knew that she looked terrific in her dres—Barry's reaction to it had made her feel like a goddess of beauty or something silly like that —she doubted that she could impress a meta-human killer with it. She fought the urge to put her coat on to escape the criminal’s scrutiny.

"I kept hearing your name," the speedster said in his vibrating voice. "_Iris West_, the detective who's unofficially leading the investigation of the Hammers' case. You figured out that I wasn't Zoom, so it was only a question of time before you traced me back to the military.”

Really, Iris found it reassuring that as a cop, she got more exposure than Barry, who was the official lead CSI on the case and was the one who had actually figured out that the fake speedster wasn't a meta-human.

“You know, somehow you sounded bigger and smarter,” Bootleg commented derisively. "I so easily recognized you in that restaurant. Are you not aware that there's a hit on your head? Well, I actually failed to follow you to your place many times when I tried to tail you from CCPD, but fortune smiled upon me tonight when I was spying on my own target. There's a huge irony to the both of you being there, seriously."

Iris blinked at the pieces of information so liberally shared.

That a criminal like Bootleg knew about the hit on her head wasn't much of a surprise, but he'd just confirmed his association with the military. The fact that his 'personal target' that had been at Maggiore too was the most interesting part.

The detective had been right to suspect that the slaughter of the Hammers wasn't random. Bootleg was after someone specific, after all.

Good. She'd follow that lead once she had the fake speedster in custody.

"So the military sent you to get rid of me?" She questioned as she crossed her arms to slip her hand into the left pocket of her coat, which held her burner phone and smartwatch.

"No, I am done being their puppet," the criminal denied. "But I've been spying on them to get my hands on a new tachyon device. The newest model was stolen by Zoom, apparently, so I had to use an old prototype."

He extended his arms outward as blue electricity snapped loudly around him.

"Not as efficient as it could be," he commented. "But it gets the job done."

"Stealing the speed of an innocent girl, yeah, _ great job _," Iris replied, reveling in the speedster’s shock, apparent even through his mask.

"How do you know about Jesse Wells?" He demanded. "I told her father not to contact anyone!"

"You're such a coward," the cop said instead of answering his question. "Attacking an unsuspecting speedster to get a speed you have no right to."

She took a step towards the killer, using the movement to hide the fact that she was pressing the power button of the watch.

"You think I wanted this? I didn't ask to be turned into a meta!" He protested.

"Well, you're _not_ a meta," the detective reassured him. "You're just a guinea pig. Meta-humans 'evolve' their powers, you were just injected some freak substance to turn you into an ideal vessel for speedster's powers…"

"You sound quite condescending for a regular human being," the serial killer said darkly as he took a step towards her in turn, static electricity sparkling on the floor under the soles of his boots.

Using the cover of her coat and a desk table as she retreated, Iris lifted the back of her dress and unstrapped the mini stun gun from her thigh.

She knew that she had no chance of hitting the speedster dead on, so as she walked backwards she observed the place he'd brought her to.

It looked like a corporate office in a basement, as they were no windows. Many of the lights overhead were flickering and there was a thick layer of dust on all surfaces, which indicated that the place was abandoned.

There was a framed wall art on Bootleg's right, so without overthinking it, Detective West dropped her coat, shifted on her heels, aimed at the reflective surface and fired.

The glass encasing the image _ did _ deflect the electric charge as she hoped, but Zoom's copycat sped out of range of the redirected shot.

"Interesting," the fake speedster commented with a vicious hiss. "I take my words back. You're definitely worth the attention, Iris West."

He was walking menacingly towards her again, his stolen powers oozing out of him, when another blue light appeared in the room, and Iris released a sigh of relief when she recognized one of Reverb's breaches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bootleg's target being at the restaurant was supposed to be a huge plot point, but it would've ruined the date. Let's say that Barry and Iris were too focused on each other to notice anyone else.
> 
> I'll just do a shocking reveal in chapter 19. I'd rather keep the drama between WestAllen in this fic.
> 
> Chapter 18 should be posted along with this!


	18. Part 5_Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bootleg vs. Team Zoom + Iris West

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little action before the drama!

At first Iris was surprised to see Crystal Frost come out of the breach first, but when she destabilized Bootleg by icing the floor, the choice to have her take point made sense.

The fake speedster fell backward, almost in slow motion, and Frost immobilized him on the floor with columns of ice around his legs.

Reverb and Black Siren stepped out of the breach just as yellow lightning cracked in the room before air whooshed right in front of Iris.

"You're okay?" Zoom asked Iris as he grabbed her shoulders before he even came to a full stop, the vibration of his voice enhancing his panicked tone.

"Yeah," she replied quietly as she stared at his vibrating face.

Iris had known that the Dark Speedster cared about her in his own way, since they'd been acquainted since his vigilante days.

But ever since he'd intervened in the shooting last night, she understood that he _really_ _cared_ about her.

Also, the fact that he was the generous Jay Garrick meant that he wasn't exactly the bad boy she'd thought would be terrible for her to date.

_ But he's still a criminal _ , she reflected internally. _ That's why you're here, West, because you've been looking for ways to tell everyone that he's just a _ thief _ and not a _ killer _ . You can't care about him like he cares about you. _

"Watch out!" Reverb shouted before shards of ice exploded across the room.

Zoom shielded Iris from the sharp pieces by hugging her closely.

She was getting used to his embrace. Too used to it, in fact.

_ I like Barry,_ she reminded herself as she quickly pulled away from the real speedster to assess where the fake one was, pointing her small gun ahead of her.

"Four meta-humans against one," Bootleg announced in a harsh tone as he looked at the newcomers across several rows of desks and cubicles.

"You're whining about the _ unfairness _ of the fight?" Siren asked with a scoff. "Unfairness didn’t seem to bother you when you killed those gang members."

"They deserved it!" The copycat speedster spat as blue lightning sparkled around him. "They're killers who prey on innocents, and they serve the worst kind of people this world knows!"

"_Serial killers _ fit in that category," Detective West pointed out as she aimed her gun at him with no intention of shooting.

"Oh, but I'm not the only serial killer here, am I?" Bootleg countered as he waved a finger towards the group facing him. "When I thought that I'd become a meta-human, I searched for others like me. Zoom might be innocent of murder, but these three aren't. And they're worse than me. They had the choice to use their powers…"

"Because someone forced _ you _ to use yours and kill the thugs?" Reverb asked. "Oh, _ wait _ , that's not possible, because you don't have any powers. You _ steal _ them from true speedsters!"

"Where is Jesse Wells?" Both Iris and Zoom asked at the same time, drawing the attention of the fully masked criminal.

Frost swiftly threw an ice pick at the distracted Bootleg, and he howled in pain when he got hit right in his lower abdomen.

"Nice!" Siren commented before screaming at the fake speedster, the strength of her voice throwing him against a wall and pinning him against it as she stepped closer to him.

"Don't let her kill him!" The cop shouted at Zoom as she shielded one ear with her free hand.

"Siren, enough!" The real speedster ordered, and the sound meta retreated, letting the Bootleg topple down onto the floor.

"Anyone of you has something I can tie him up with?" Iris asked the group as she cautiously got closer to the defeated criminal, eyeing his movements.

He was holding something, maybe his injured side—Frost better not have wounded him fatally or the cop would arrest _her_ instead—but it was only after she took a metallic version of a zip tie from Reverb that Iris noticed the fumes coming off the ventilation panels.

"What?" She exclaimed as she stepped back, still aiming at Bootleg who was now crawling back up, holding a _ remote _ in his hand.

Whatever gas was invading the room didn't smell like anything to Iris, but she covered her mouth and nose and looked for exits.

There was a door on her eight, and another one under an exit sign by the still icy floor on Bootleg's right. Both looked locked.

"Shit," the detective heard Siren curse right behind her.

"What?" She repeated, as a question this time.

"You're the one who told me," Bootleg said with some difficulty, his voice not vibrating anymore and his blue lightning gone, though whatever injury he'd suffered was healing rapidly—that was a freaky thing to witness, a bleeding wound closing up in seconds.

"That I'm not a meta-human," the fake speedster added in a more confident tone before Iris could ask what he was talking about.

Huh.

"Iris, get out of here!" Zoom shouted.

The real speedster’s voice sounded strained, and not just in fear for her safety.

The detective glanced behind her and saw Zoom and his teammates falling to the floor, coughing and wheezing in labored breaths.

"They call it the meta-tranquilizer," Bootleg enlightened her as his voice went back to vibrating again. "It only affects people with an active meta gene. So you and _ I _ are safe from it," he gloated as electricity started emerging from him again.

The next second, he grunted in pain at the stun gun shots Iris delivered to his chest and head as fast as she could.

"These stun guns are mostly used to incapacitate meta-humans, but they actually work on _ anyone,_" the cop smugly informed him in return.

The serial killer lost consciousness even before the metas did.

Iris tied him up to a dusty swivel chair and searched the hidden pockets of his suit before removing his mask.

The detective was loath to admit that the killer was handsome, with his strong jaw, high cheekbones and sandy hair. She didn’t have the slightest idea about who he was, however.

Ignoring the urge to go across the room and remove Zoom's mask too, the cop used the keys she fished out of Bootleg's pockets to unlock the door that wasn't an exit so she could search the place. 

Jesse Wells, smart as her father, was screaming for help on top of her lungs on another level of the abandoned building—Iris had looked out a window and couldn't tell where the hell she was, so calling for backup wasn't an option.

"Jesse Wells, I am Detective Iris West," she announced as she tried different keys to open the locked door. "You're safe now. The other speedster has been neutralized."

"You don't look like a cop," was the first thing the girl told her when she entered the room, and Iris couldn't help but chuckle.

Finally, _ finally, _ she'd made progress on the case. She still had to ID the perp and his ultimate target, but at least she’d rescued an innocent victim.

Iris interrogated the girl as gently as she could—was she okay? Yes. Did the suspect have any accomplices? None that she'd seen or heard. Anyone else in the building that she was aware of? No. Could she stand, walk, run? Yes, yes, yes but her powers were gone for now. Did she know where this place was? No idea.

"I'll be right back, please stay here a little longer," the detective instructed the abductee after uncuffing her. "There's meta-tranquilizer gas floating around. I don't think that it spread all the way to here but let's be safe. I'll get you back to your father soon, okay? Here, keep this key, lock yourself up if you feel unsafe at any point. Don't talk to anyone but me, alright? I can't call for backup, so there's no other police officer around."

The teenager nodded quietly before sagging against the couch she'd been sitting on.

She had been kept in what was obviously a break room, which had a kitchenette and an adjoining bathroom. There were sealed and empty bottles of water on the table, as well as empty containers of takeout.

The Wells daughter did look well, with the exception of slightly bruised wrists. With her powers stolen away, physical injuries would've been obvious—unlike mental ones, which Iris prayed would get addressed in time.

It was reassuring to learn that Bootleg was only a monster towards other criminals.

Iris rushed back to the basement, allowing herself to be concerned about Zoom and his team now that she'd confirmed the kid's whereabouts.

When she got back to the office room, Bootleg was still unconscious and secure, and the metas were still passed out.

They had all laid down on their good sides, so all the cop had to do was check their pulses and breathing.

Iris blinked at Siren and Reverb's joined hands. 

Right, the kiss and 'sweetheart' earlier had given them away already, she’d been too excited about her date to compute that they were an item.

Both seemed fine, so the detective moved on to Frost, and gasped in surprise.

The ice meta's white hair had turned brown! Her skin looked different too, her dark lipstick and eyeshadow gone.

Most importantly, her ice mask had disappeared.

Call Iris crazy, but Crystal Frost now looked exactly like Barry's friend who had opened his apartment door that first time she visited him.

_ No way_, the cop thought as she looked back at Reverb.

That great hair, that height and that build and that skin tone. She didn't even need to remove his goggles, it was so obvious now that she knew.

Which meant…

"Oh God," Iris whispered, her voice breaking as she looked at Zoom's prone form.

His face was turned away, so Iris crawled towards him—she didn't trust her knees not to give out if she tried to stand up—and momentarily closed her eyes after she glanced at the uncovered parts of the freckled face, and _those eyelashes_.

Iris knew the color of the eyes behind those closed eyelids. 

Green. _ Emerald _, her favorite color.

"Barry," was all she could say just as she felt her mind crash down from working on overdrive.

_ Barry Allen _looking just fine after that freak storm almost three years ago. 

_ The Streak _ knowing her name without her telling him, and so polite when talking to her or listening to her rant about the limitations of her job.

_ Zoom_'s intact admiration for her even though he'd gone to the other side of the law.

Iris' strong attraction to Zoom, to a thief whose face she didn't even know, to the elusive criminal who was keeping her away from her well-deserved promotion.

The way _ both _ Zoom and Barry had freaked out about her being targeted.

She should've known, there were signs…

Wait.

No, she _ couldn’t _have known!

How could she have figured out that the _shy, stuttering nerd_ she had a crush on since he'd expertly run her through their first joined crime scene was one and the same with the _playful and cocky_ speedster who was painfully obvious about his desire to get into her pants?

How could she have associated the prim and proper rich kid who'd decided to use his bright mind to help defend the weak and oppressed, whose only flaw was his perpetual _ tardiness, _ to the most notorious criminal of Central City, to the _ fastest _ thief known to history?

Iris had felt terrible not even an hour ago for being attracted to _ Zoom _ when her heart belonged to _ Barry..._

How dared he? 

How dared Bartholomew Henry Allen take her, Iris Ann West, the best cop in Central City (his own words!) for a fool?  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, another cliffhanger🙃 this one isn't too bad though, right? 
> 
> I got so excited seeing Iris tase the new Wells on screen this week because I'd already planned the scene where Iris stunned Bootleg!
> 
> I'm 90% sure that I'll post the next two chapters together before the weekend is over. Please let me know what you thought of the last action-packed chapter of this fic!


	19. Part 5_Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris has to deal with Bootleg, and get to chat with Caitlin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, I'm SO sorry for not doing a better job at describing Hunter Zolomon (fake Jay Garrick). That's who Bootleg is.
> 
> I know that some of you expected WestAllen drama right away because of the identity reveal, but Iris is a cop in this AU so I prioritized the case over her confronting Barry about his deception. It will be front and center in Part 6 though, don't worry.
> 
> This chapter is much longer than planned because I realized halfway through it that I hadn't provided detailed info on why Barry switched from The Streak to Zoom, and it's a big part of this story so I had to sneak it somewhere.

A plaintive groan behind Iris smothered her fury at Barry’s deception, and she found the strength to clamber up back on her feet and rush to the desk where she had placed the stun gun.

She turned just in time to see Bootleg blinking his eyes open.

“You,” he spat angrily but too weakly to sound as threatening as before, especially with his mask off.

“Yes, _ me_, Iris West,” she drawled as she waved her weapon at him. “And you? What’s _ your _ name?”

“You’re the brilliant detective,” he replied with a scoff as he tried to adjust himself in his seat. “You figure it out.”

Iris frowned at him, but took a centering breath and went over what she had found out about the Hammers over the past weekend.

The gang existed since before she’d decided to become a cop back in high school, but back then it was just a bunch of street thugs.

By the time she’d made it detective, the Hammers had become a well-organized group, and its high-ranked members could afford bribing cops like Page.

Before going on her patrol on Monday, Iris had contacted the DA, Cecile Horton, and had learned that many of the murdered gangsters were former foster kids who had been raised in different parts of the state. So instead of eating lunch at the precinct, Detective West had dropped by the State Department of Human Services and looked for clues.

A few case files had stood out, because they belonged to boys who had been fostered by a certain Stephen Zolomon.

The catch? Stephen Zolomon was a fake name, and no one she had talked to, called or emailed could tell her anything about the whereabouts of a man who had fostered no less than eleven kids.

How did someone slip through the fingers of the federal administration without ringing an alarm?

_ By having either a lot of connections, a lot of money, or both. _ Iris thought. _ Probably both. _

“You said that you didn’t ask for your powers,” Iris recalled as she lowered her gun from its aim on Bootleg, but kept the safety off. “But you look like military to me, not some unwilling civilian. What’s the story?”

“What do you think, Detective West?” the fake speedster asked back with disdain.

Such a different tone from what Barry or Zoom used when they called her by her title.

_ Barry and Zoom are the same person, _ she reminded herself. _ The same _ liar _ . _

“I think that I shouldn’t make unsubstantiated leaps of reasoning,” she answered flatly, “but this is Central City, where the impossible is a daily occurence. So I’d speculate on the only lead I have so far: you killing ten Hammers, six of which were the foster kids of a certain Stephen Zolomon. That name is an alias, a fake name, so I couldn’t find the man to ask him questions about your victims. But _ you _ did find him, didn’t you?”

The twitch in Bootleg’s brow and the tightening of his jaw spoke volumes to her detective’s instincts.

“You said that you found me only because I was at the same place as your target,” she pointed out. “You also said that there was a huge irony to the both of us being at Maggiore. Why?”

She hadn’t expected the serial killer to answer the question, so when he silently glared at her, she started pacing, hoping that the repetitive sound of her heels on the dusty tiles would irritate him enough to bring down his guard.

“I’ll figure it out soon enough,” she taunted him. “A fancy place like that requires reservation…”

_ How did Barry booked one so fast? _ She wondered with alarm, barely remembering to keep pacing in front of Bootleg. _ Did he threaten someone as Zoom to get a table? _

She’d dined in with a thief. With the most wanted thief of Central City. With the thief whose arrest would get her the promotion she deserved.

Zoom had claimed that he and her weren’t enemies, and maybe that had been Barry talking. But the fact was that the speedster was _ her _ enemy. He was an obstacle to her career advancement, and like an idiot Iris had allied herself to him.

She had slept in a guest room at his secret base! Oh God, she had _ kissed _ him, and _ loved _ every second of it.

“Fancy places like that have too many people who’d be on a criminal’s black list,” the fake speedster's words brought her out of her musings. 

He was looking at her with a one-sided grin. “I’m sure your friend Zoom right there has stolen from half of that restaurant’s patrons.”

“Good point,” the cop conceded, “and _ if _ you hadn’t given me that big clue I would hit a dead end. But when I see that reservation list, one name will scream ‘irony’ at me, and I’ll know. I just have to wait for these guys to wake up—”

No sooner had the word _ up _left her lips that a gust of wind whipped her hair around before Zoom stood between her and the tied-up killer.

“Well done, Detective,” the real speedster’s vibrating voice praised her.

Iris almost told him that she didn’t need compliments from a liar like him, but she refrained from showing her anger in front of Bootleg.

“Let’s make sure he can’t use his speed,” the Dark Speedster said as he took out the modified tachyon device from a pocket, “then I can dump him in a cell at CCPD for you.”

Iris stepped to the side to frown at Bootleg, who had snickered at Zoom’s words.

“You were actually telling the truth when you said that you weren’t friends,” the serial killer amended. “He’s your _ lackey _! Is this how you’ve become such a respected detective? By having a superpowered outlaw help you do your job?”

“I’m helping her out with _ this _ case because it will help clear my name,” Zoom pointed out sharply before he forcefully stuck the device to the fake speedster’s chest. “You are lucky that I respect Detective West too much to steal her arrest. Otherwise I’d abduct you the same way you abducted Jesse Wells, but I wouldn’t need you to remain _ unharmed _ because I don’t need to steal your speed.”

The wording of the threat were mild, but Iris couldn’t believe that this chilling tone came from Barry Allen, the most inoffensive man she thought she knew.

_ Just like you thought that Jay Garrick was the nicest man in Central City for donating much needed money to the only hospital that cares for underserved groups? _ She chided herself bitterly.

Bootleg whined in pain as sparks of his blue electricity emerged from his body, then converged into the small disc stuck on his chest.

Zoom removed the device as forcefully as he’d placed it, and easily crushed it in his hand.

“Did you find Jesse?” the speedster asked Iris, his voice still cold but losing its menacing edge.

“Yes, she says that she’s alright,” the cop answered with a short nod. “She doesn’t have her powers right now, but they will return, right?”

“They should,” he confirmed. “Do you mind if I take her home myself? Dr. Wells never declared her missing, and I promised him that I’ll bring his daughter back. It will only take a few minutes.”

The detective was about to give her ascent when a sharp gasp came up behind her.

“Where am I? What is—Oh my God!” the brunette who was also Frost yelled as she crawled to a desk for support before standing up. She stared at Zoom, Iris and the unmasked Bootleg.

“What is going on?” she asked in alarm.

“Caitlin,” Zoom whispered.

_ So that’s her real name_, Iris thought to herself before catching a movement behind the speedster.

She used the stun gun without hesitating, effectively stopping Bootleg from launching himself at Zoom—how had he broken the tie?

Zoom sped away before the serial killer’s bulk could fall on him, and alternatively stared at the fallen criminal and Iris.

“Thank you, Iris” he told her.

“You’re welcome, _ Barry_,” she spat back.

“Oh, no,” Caitlin said, bringing a hand on her face and realizing that her mask was gone. “Barry I’m so sorry…”

“Don’t worry about it,” the speedster cut her off, his voice not vibrating anymore.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Iris echoed as she held the panicked woman’s eyes, “Miss…?”

“Doctor,” the brunette corrected, and the detective could tell that it was an automatic response to being called ‘miss’. “I mean, I’m Dr. Caitlin Snow, it’s nice seeing you again Detective West. Looks like you caught the copycat.”

“Yeah,” the cop acknowledged before glaring at Zoom. “It also looks like there wasn’t just one speedster lying about his identity.”

“Iris,” Zoom said—no, _ Barry _, his voice was a dead give away, no wonder he’d stuck to making it vibrate the whole time.

“Weren’t you supposed to bring Jesse Wells home?” she reminded harshly before turning her back to him to look down at Bootleg. “She’s on the fourth floor. I told her not to speak to anyone other than me, but I’m sure that she’ll trust a fellow speedster. I’ll watch over this guy until you get back.”

She appreciated that Zoom didn’t insist, and simply sped away.

Iris struggled to get Bootleg back on his chair, and removed the thin holster around her thigh to bind the serial killer again.

“Barry really cares about you,” she heard Caitlin say behind her.

The detective turned around to see the woman check her teammates’ pulses.

“No offense, Dr. Snow,” Iris replied, “but I don’t think that whatever is happening, or rather _ not happening _ between Barry and I is any of your business.”

“Actually I do take offense to your dismissal,” the pretty brunette said as she stood back up to face her.

“Excuse me?” the cop exclaimed.

“As Barry’s friend and teammate, it’s my duty to defend his actions,” the doctor told her. “I would still be worried sick about Crystal’s criminal activity if not for him. It’s the least I can do.”

Errr… What?

“Right, sorry,” Caitlin said when she saw Iris’ dumbfounded expression.

She held the snowflake necklace between her fingers, rubbing it as she let out a long sigh.

“I’m a meta-human, but didn’t become one by accident,” she informed the detective. “I was born with IPEX syndrome—a rare autoimmune disease. At the time I was diagnosed, there wasn’t anything resembling a cure for it, and I wasn’t expected to live past childhood.”

Iris felt sorry for the little scared girl Caitlin Snow must have been back then. Clearly she had made it, though.

“My father, who’s a geneticist” the young woman resumed, “used a fringe experiment combining cryogenisation and targeted mutagenesis to change my entire genome, to remove every single protein that was triggering the systemic immune response in my body. This very unethical and untested experiment miraculously worked, but it also created my alter-ego: Crystal Frost.”

Iris had to give it to Barry: he was still the only person who could make science make sense to her, or at least make it sound simple and beautiful.

She was barely grasping what Dr. Snow was telling her, and it seemed to show on her face because the brunette smiled apologetically.

“Ah, sorry, the only other people I’ve told my story are scientists themselves,” Caitlin admitted. “And neither Ronnie or Cisco fully understand what I told them. Barry does because he’s a biochemist. Which brings me back to my point: without Barry, I’d still be scared about having my alter ego, Crystal Frost, caught or killed because of her criminal activity. Zoom took her in, and gave her a better purpose, all the while keeping her away from immediate harm.”

“You’re saying that you and Crystal are _ two _different persons?” the detective finally caught on. “Sharing the same body?”

“Yes,” Dr. Snow confirmed. “At first she would only pop up when I felt scared or angry, but over time, she started emerging at random, and I would lose control of my body for days.”

“Why not use a power-suppressing device?” the cop questioned with a frown. “When Dr. Wells donated us meta-cuffs, Barry said that they could easily be converted into bracelets…”

“I can’t suppress my powers for too long,” Caitlin informed her with a shake of her head. “Otherwise the mutation gets silenced, and my autoimmune disease resurfaces. Barry helped me make me this necklace so that I would know when I need to let Frost out before my body starts getting inflamed again. Plus, Crystal has enhanced regenerative powers. If I suppressed her, I would be denying myself the chance to survive an accident, a serious injury...Or the touch of my husband*.”

The doctor didn’t elaborate on her last sentence, and Iris judged that it was too private of a subject for her to push for an explanation.

Anyway, now she understood why Barry stole money. All that tech and research wasn’t cheap, she was aware of that.

It didn’t justify a _ police employee _ turning into criminality, but it explained why a vigilante like The Streak would suddenly become an unapologetic burglar.

To help other meta-humans. 

“Barry really cares about you,” Caitlin repeated, “and I’m sure that it was hard for him to become a thief, not just because of his own ethics but because he knew that you wouldn’t condone his actions.”

Barry was right, Iris wouldn't. She _ couldn’t _ . She understood his reason, but she was a _ cop _. The law was the law.

“But Barry cares about other people _ too _ ,” the doctor added solemnly. “That terrible storm three years ago turned many people’s lives upside down, especially those who became meta-humans overnight. As a cop, you only deal with the meta-humans who use their powers to break the law. There are close to a _ thousand _ meta-humans in Central City, Detective West, and that’s only how many we’ve reached out to. Can you imagine the care all these people would require?”

Iris could only imagine intellectually, because the idea had occurred to her when she’d dealt with her first meta-human criminal. _ A thousand _ people, though? That was insane. Iris felt uneasy about that number, and could only imagine the fear and hatred that could emerge if people knew that their neighbors could fly or walk through their walls.

“I remember hearing about people with weird conditions popping in hospitals and clinics back then," Caitlin recounted. "I'm a licensed physician but have spent more time in labs than in hospitals because of Crystal, but felt compelled to help at the General Hospital during the days after the storm. It's the closest hospital to the old industrial area, where we’ve guessed that a lot of dark-matter was contained but was dissipated because of the storm. Three people died of unexplained causes in front of me at GH, and it wasn't until months later when Barry provided me with the right equipment and samples of their DNA that I was able to tell that they were meta-humans in the first place. Their powers had killed them."

The detective was horrified by the picture the doctor was painting.

"The police and firefighters were brought in to intervene because the hospital staff didn't feel safe caring for patients who were a danger to themselves and others," the brunette carried on. "People who needed close medical attention were turned away at the doors or just didn't walk in themselves because they didn't feel helped with the police around, they felt watched and judged. Detective, you know _ who _ lives in the old industrial area."

Underserved communities, many of which already had to deal with regular medical conditions they couldn't afford treatments to.

"After the first arrest of a meta-human criminal was made thanks to Dr. Wells' meta-cuffs, no weird cases showed up at GH for a while," Dr. Snow told her. "I myself had left the premises because the stressful environment had brought Crystal out. Thankfully my then fiancé, who'd just become a meta-human himself, found me and brought me home."

That was a side of meta-humans' lives Iris had always wondered about, but never dared to think of too deeply. She'd known that she wasn't trained to help any meta-human herself, and could only stick to her job of catching criminals. But she'd briefly voiced her feelings of uselessness to The Streak.

To _ Barry _. 

"When no one else cared about what happened to those affected by the storm, _Barry_ stepped up to the plate," Caitlin said as if knowing her thoughts.

"He'd experimented on himself to come up with a power-suppressing bracelet, but he didn't have the means to make more for other meta-humans. He contacted Dr. Wells at S.T.A.R. Labs, but Dr. Wells didn't have the funds to take on such a huge project. You see, it wasn't enough to come up with power-suppressing bracelets, Barry wanted to make their design different enough from the meta-cuffs so that no one would suspect that the wearers were meta-humans. The smartwatch that you've been given is the result of Barry's, Cisco's, Dr. Stein's and my own efforts. Its main purpose is to suppress powers and help us monitor its wearer’s vitals as well as location, in case they need help. We contacted Barry behind Dr. Wells' back and helped him. There are hundreds of people in Central City who owe their normal lives to Barry. He couldn't have helped them if he hadn't broken the law to get the funds for his project."

Iris was speechless. Her anger at his deception momentarily forgotten, she tried to imagine Barry Allen, a privileged kid and loner, getting out of his way to help strangers. Him being desperate enough to go against his principles, him putting himself in danger by exposing himself to the criminal network of Central City.

Iris remembered the times when she'd vented her frustration to The Streak about not being able to do enough for victims of injustices, even the ones she helped by arresting criminals. Putting the perpetrators in jail wasn't enough, the victims were still wronged and still needed help getting back on their feet, she'd told the speedster over and over.

And now Detective West couldn't help but wonder: had she pushed Barry Allen to become the unsung hero of Central City? Had she encouraged him to become the protector of helpless meta-humans by becoming a criminal, because she'd implied that the law was failing the people?

"I didn't know," was all she could tell Caitlin, right before Zoom sped back in. 

"Dr. Wells sends his best regards," the speedster imparted with a hesitant smile.

"Oh," was Iris' useless reaction.

She didn't know what to say, couldn't find it in her to remain angry, though she knew that her anger was justified.

He still had lied to her, had flirted with her as Zoom and acted coy and uninterested as Barry until very recently.

"If you'd prefer, Reverb can breach you and Bootleg to CCPD," Zoom suggested as he glanced at the serial killer. "I don't know that face. I dumbly thought that I'd recognize him without his mask, but…"

"If your contact from last time can help me uncover someone else’s identity, maybe I can ID him," the cop proposed to Barry's surprise.

"You're sure?" He asked.

"I just want to close this case and go home," Iris said impatiently, immediately feeling bad when she saw the hurt in Barry's face.

Now she regretted that he'd stop making his face and voice vibrate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the huge amount of exposition, but I think that it gives the big picture of the events mentioned mostly in chapters 2, 8, 13, and in Barry's talk with Dr. Wells. Plus, I wanted to give Caitlin some agency, since I've favored Frost for most of this story.
> 
> What did you think? I wanted to somehow convey the "without Iris West, there wouldn't be The Flash" message, but for Zoom.
> 
> Don't forget to read Chapter 20!
> 
> * I don't remember the details of Firestorm's powers on the show, but in this AU Ronnie can be Deathstorm on his own for a few hours, but he cannot fully control his powers so sometimes he accidentally burns Caitlin. Don't think too much about the technicalities because I didn't.


	20. Part 5_Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wrapping up the case, plus Iris' thoughts about Barry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make the chapter exciting with another Pied Piper cameo and a few funny lines, but most of it is talk about the case sprinkled with Iris' conflicted thoughts about Barry.
> 
> I've heavily edited this chapter, so if the whole case doesn't make sense to you, I can sum it up for you in the comment section.

Reverb and Black Siren regained consciousness an hour after Barry unsuccessfully tried to get a hold of his contact.

He'd sped Iris and the whole team back to his secret base in the meantime, letting the detective confine Bootleg to a secure cell designed to hold meta-humans in the basement of his vast building.

"I'll take it by your unmasked face that she knows?" The breacher questioned Barry when he arrived in the monitoring room from wherever the speedster had dropped him.

The breacher followed his words by pointing at the cowl hanging behind the speedster’s neck, which Iris admittedly had been staring at herself.

Seeing the CSI's face and the speedster's body occupy the same space was confusing the cop’s brain. It was so odd.

With that said, Barry looked..._Hot _ in his black suit. Iris had wondered if the man behind Zoom's mask was her type, and now she had her answer.

_ No, he’s not my type, _ she denied firmly after shifting her gaze away from Barry_. Liars aren't my type_.

"Yes, _ she knows_, so help me out here man," Barry requested hurriedly. "I need to hack into the Department of Human Services, more specifically the foster care files. Looking for a Stephen Zolomon."

"That should be doable," the breacher answered as he casually tossed his goggles to a desk near him before sitting by Barry's side and taking over the search.

Yep, that _was_ the young 'biker' with great hair that the detective had met at the CSI's apartment. Not that she'd doubted it for a second.

As the two thieves worked, Iris peered at the surveillance camera's feed that gave her eyes on a still unconscious Bootleg.

The memory of staring at the same computer screen earlier in the day popped in her head.

"How were you in two different places at once?" She questioned Barry.

"What?" The unexpecting speedster reacted as he looked up from the screen in front of him.

"Earlier today, you were here searching for Jesse Wells, but I saw Zoom training for his speed right on this computer," Iris recounted, confused.

"Oh, it was…Umm, it was a recording of an old training session," he confessed as he rubbed the back of his neck.

His shyness made anger flare in her chest.

"Drop the shy guy act, Allen," she demanded as she crossed her arms under her chest, then switched to crossing them _ over _ her chest when she saw Barry furtively glance at her decolletage.

"Wait, you think that Zoom's personality is his _ real _ one?" Black Siren intervened as she stepped into the room through the sliding door.

Iris gaped at the blonde woman, who had removed her mask.

"Laurel Lance?" She identified her.

Did she know _everyone_ on this team?

"Oh, you know me?" the sound meta-human casually asked.

"You provide legal advice to the members of the WYC," the cop stated. "My friend Linda and I volunteer there once in a while… I've seen your face and name on the flyer of the power yoga class you teach."

"Small world for such a big city," Lance said as she dropped onto a chair. "Anyway, as I was saying, Barry's awkward shyness isn't faked. It's Zoom' cockiness that is. I was quite disappointed when I found out."

"_ Please_, I don't need the reminder that you once had a crush on Barry," Reverb pleaded before he exclaimed "got him! Actually, no that's not _him_, but someone with the same last name."

All three other occupants of the room stepped closer and looked up at the projected screen, which was displaying a picture of _Bootleg_ himself.

"Hunter Zolomon," Iris read out loud. "Are they related?"

He had a lot of hours of counseling, plus a sealed criminal record as a juvie. Had he been in a Hammers' rival gang? Was this why he had killed those guys, because of some revenge?

"No idea," the breacher let her know. "The name Steve Zolomon comes up in a total of eleven foster care cases, but there's no info on him other than some phoney date of birth, social security and phone numbers. Hunter Zolomon was actually one of his foster kids, so I doubt that it's his real name. Why would he need to foster his own relative?"

"I could try to call my contact again, see if they can find anything about this guy's real name," Barry offered.

"What about the reservation list of Maggiore’s diners?" Iris suggested, lifting a hand to stop the speedster from calling his hacker associate. "Bootleg said that his target was there tonight, that's how he found me."

"Dude, how did _ you _ get a reservation there?" Reverb asked Zoom as he started typing. "I wanted to get Cait and Ronnie a table there for their anniversary, but the place is booked until the holidays. _ Not _ Unity Day, Winter Solstice Eve!"

The detective glanced at Barry, who glanced back at her.

"I asked for a favor," he admitted.

"Please tell me that's not code for 'I threatened an old rich couple'," Iris seriously requested.

"Detective!" Barry exclaimed indignantly as Siren and Reverb burst into laughter.

"That was a good one," the breacher commented before he waved his hand at the projected screen. "Here's your list."

Iris hurried to go through it, grateful that there was only a couple dozen names on it.

She had been wrong to assume that the name of Bootleg's target would scream 'irony' at her.

Irony itself _ exploded _ in her face.

"Jeffrey McMillan?" It was Barry who said the name out loud. "I didn't see him there…"

Neither had Iris, for the same reason as him, she suspected: she had been too focused on her date.

"Am I the only one finding it fishy that the same guy who's put a hit on Detective West is the guy that Bootleg has been trying to kill all along, who is actually his foster father?" Siren asked.

"He doesn't want to kill him," Barry and Iris corrected her at the same time.

"That's the second time that you two speak in sync tonight," Reverb observed cheekily. "I guess that now you truly are on the same wavelength, eh?"

"If Zolomon wanted to kill McMillan he could've done it at the restaurant," Iris argued, ignoring the breacher's comment as she digested the information that Senator McMillan was Bootleg’s foster father. “Why would he go on such a rampage to get to him, though?”

"Cisco, pull up Hunter Zolomon's military profile," Barry requested.

_ Cisco? Odd name _, Iris thought.

She frowned as she read Hunter Zolomon's profile. His juvie record was summarized on this file, and it clearly said that the guy had been diagnosed with IED*.

Iris gasped quietly when she realized that Bootleg probably hadn’t even _meant_ to kill those Hammers, despite his lack of remorse for doing it.

In a controlled environment, the fake speedster hadn't lifted a finger on Jesse Wells. But out there in the streets with people pointing guns at him because they thought that he was Zoom? The blood of his victims was also on the hands of whoever had thought that giving super speed to someone with anger issues was a good idea.

"How did a guy like that make it into the army?" She heard Siren wondered out loud.

"The same way gun violence has increased since McMillan became senator: corruption," Iris replied with a slap of her hand on the nearest surface. "McMillan probably used his connection to get his foster kid in the army the same way he used connections to get his name redacted from federal files. To think that the state trusted this guy with kids! McMillan now has those same foster kids running his arms trafficking show, the bastard. I can't stand _ liars _ who hide behind _ fake names_!"

She'd directed her gaze to Barry as she said it, and felt bitter satisfaction from seeing him pale at her words.

"Bootleg claimed that he didn't ask for his powers, and now I believe him," Iris shared before pointing at a line on his profile. "Look there, 2010, he was in Haiti and was so severely injured in a landslide that they put him into an artificial coma to spare him the pain."

"He should've died then," Frost commented from the door. "Feels good to finally walk in here without that stupid mask."

Iris now understood why security in this place was so high: the doors were so silent, people could easily creep on you.

"But he didn't die," Barry followed up on Frost's morbid comment. "And there's nothing here that tells us anything about a treatment. The military wouldn't experiment on him without his consent, right? That would send whoever’s in charge of the research straight to a court martial."

"They didn't need _ Zolomon’s _ consent," the detective stated, shocked by her own conclusion. "He was in the coma, his fate was in the hands of his next of kin. _ McMillan _ gave him away."

"Both Zolomon’s biological parents are dead," Cisco read out loud after pulling out more detailed records. "Aww man! It says that his father killed his mother right in front of a nine year old Hunter. No wonder he has anger issues. But yeah, no recorded living blood relative. McMillan _ would _ be the only person to contact in case of emergency. If the file is to be believed, he fostered Hunter for five years."

"So, this is why McMillan is targeting you," Barry deduced somberly as he turned to Iris. "McMillan knew that since you’d taken over the case, there was a chance that you'd uncover the fact that he's contributed to such a blatant disregard for human rights. People know that he’s a gun lobbyist and that invests in anti-meta tech, but they don't know that he's a coldblooded bastard who'd let people experiment on his own foster kid, a _ regular _ human with clear mental issues. That would hurt his reputation if words ever got out, whether or not he gets charged for it. Page would sweep that info under the rug, but not _ you_."

"McMillan needs to get charged for _something_," Iris said angrily. "The military obviously won't admit to conducting such experiments, but I'm sick of McMillan having his guys run _my_ city."

A ringtone resonated from one of the computers, and Barry frowned, then sighed before connecting what seemed like a video call to the main com system.

It was the guy in the green hood from this morning, the Piper guy Reverb had called about the Heidon shooters. The one who had blowed Barry's cover as Jay Garrick.

He was dressed in a three-piece suit this time, no hood to hide his face—same chin and glasses—and _of course_ Iris recognized him this time: Hartley Rathaway.

"Heavens, _ Barry_, don't ever go out like this, you'd get arrested for being too sexy," the famously known playboy commented right off the bat.

Iris immediately thought 'hands off', and blinked at her reaction.

Barry wasn't her boyfriend. They'd kissed and gone on _ one _ date, and that would be the end of their personal relationship. She didn't know how she would bear looking at him at work, but she'd find a way.

"The next person who expresses their unsolicited crush for my crime boss…" Reverb threatened. "What do you want, Rathaway? We're busy here."

"Did I say that I wanted to talk to you, _ invidus_?" the rich heir talked back with a sniff before he turned his gaze back at Barry. "I found something interesting about the shooters from last night, hun."

"Which is?" The speedster prompted after an awkward silence fell in the room.

"You didn't give me your word to be my plus one at my father's birthday party," the member of Central City's one percent reminded Zoom.

"I told you that I'm not going on a date with you," Barry insisted. "The agreement was on the investment gig with the CFO."

"It won't really be a date," the rich heir assured. "My father's birthday party is all business and no fun, _ you _ know that." he pointedly added as he briefly peered at Iris.

She stamped down the urge to straighten up to her full height and to discreetly fix her hair.

"We ended up spending _a lot of time together_ the few times your parents forced you to attend anyway," Rathaway added with a sly smile. "What difference does it make if we also _ arrive _ together?"

"None," Allen confirmed with a stern voice, "which means that I can help you with your vendetta against your father's CFO _without_ being your plus one. I'll find my invitation to the party in my parents' mailbox."

"You're no fun, Barry Allen," Hartley whined with a silly pout as if he was actually Barry's boyfriend.

"What's the info about the shooters?" Iris demanded impatiently, and gladly returned the glare the rich young man gave her.

"I don't speak to the police without my lawyer," he deadpanned.

"Hartley," Barry chided.

"Fine," the caller replied with an exaggerated sigh. "Two of them are reformed Hammers gang members, and are goons of that sleazy Senator of ours, McMillan. Did you know that he talked to me at the last Jewel Ball? As if I had time for a parvenu like him.”

“What are those guys’ names?” Detective West asked the chatty rich guy.

“I’m sorry, did you not _ just _ hear me say that I don’t have time for people below my social status?” Rathaway talked back.

“Come again?” Siren jumped into the conversation,

“Not you, _ mon canari_, of course,” the rich guy amended in a mellifluous tone and a sweet smile. “The universe amply made up for the injustice of your low birth by making you the only meta-human I can relate to. If only you’d been born a man…”

“Albert Rothstein and Eddie Slick,” Cisco told Iris as he pointed at his tablet’s screen to the pictures of two men that indeed looked like the ones she had exchanged gunshots with. "Two of Stephen Zolomon's, a.k.a McMillan's foster kids."

“Did you just hack into my phone?” the rich heir asked with clear offense.

“I’ll call you later about that investment cover, thanks Hartley,” Barry said quickly, disconnecting the call before Rathaway could respond.

“I can interrogate those guys myself and get a confession that will help you arrest McMillan for…” Barry started but trailed off with a frown. “That’s an attempted murder charge, right?”

“If we can prove that McMillan ordered it, yes,” Iris specified before glaring at him. “Did you just imply that you were going to torture people to get a confession? That’s not admissible in court.”

“I don’t torture people, Detective,” he denied with a smirk before he pulled his mask back on. “I’m not a thug, I’m a thief,” he added, his voice vibrating again. “I’ll steal that confession from those guys’ lips without them noticing. The money trail of that hit, too.”

Zoom winked at her before speeding away.

He _ winked _ at her.

“By the way,” Reverb said as he stretched his arms, “can I breach Bootleg to CCPD? I don’t like having him around.”

Iris sighed.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Let me change, and we’ll go.”

She was going to trust Zoom to get evidence against McMillan, but that would be the end of her association with the speedster.

_ Maybe I can ask for a transfer once I get patted on the back for locking up a big shot like McMillan_, she thought. _ That way I won’t have to deal with Barry the CSI, either_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IED=intermittent explosive disorder. No offense to anyone with anger management problems or any mental issues.
> 
> Pinky promise, the last two chapters are just for WestAllen! Drama mostly in chapter 21, then happy ending in chapter 22.


	21. Part 6: Barry and Iris

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry has bad news, and so does Iris, but they manage to clear the air about Barry's secret identity. Among other things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for posting this so late, and for not having chapter 22 posted along with it! This chapter is longer than usual, so I hope it makes up for it.  
Linda makes an appearance! And Collins gets a couple lines too. If you don't remember him, he's the low-level detective who's Page's lackey and has the second best marksmanship score at CCPD after Iris.

It was a shame that Zoom didn't actually torture people. At least not physically.

Usually he sped suspects who were too shy to speak up to the edge of a cliff at Taum Sauk, and they'd spill out more than he needed to hear—after screaming like children on a roller coaster when they realized where they were.

Rothstein and Slick were much tougher than the average thug, however. They almost willingly jumped to their deaths just to avoid serious questioning.

That absolute loyalty explained why McMillan had kept them closer to him than his other foster children. 

Disappointed by his failure to get Iris what she needed to get the corrupt senator arrested, the speedster ran to his apartment to take a shower and change into his regular clothes. 

He had been staring at the last bite of an energy bar for a whole minute when he realized that he was stalling. He wasn't very eager to be in Iris' presence so soon again just to see her looking at him with disdain, the way she had since finding out that he was Zoom.

God, he'd messed up, hadn't he? He should've kept both of his lives totally separated.

He should've never contacted Iris in his suit again once he'd become a criminal. He should've contented himself with interacting with her at work, and eventually worked up the courage to ask her out…

_ Yeah, right _ , he mocked himself _ . I only made a move because I was able to get close to her as The Streak then Zoom. I basically owe Hunter Zolomon the date he then so rudely interrupted _. 

Their first date had been so perfect! How had the night turned around so badly?

_ It wouldn't have gone so wrong had Detective West known who you were underneath the mask this whole time, _ his conscience pointed out—it annoyingly sounded like _ Lawton _, of all people.

When should he have told her, though? When he was still The Streak? When he became Zoom? After the first Hammers crime scene? Before the Mercury Labs mission? When he almost lost control of his powers when he and Iris made out in his apartment? When Hartley ousted him as Jay Garrick?

After letting out a loud groan of frustration, the speedster took a few deep breaths to put himself back together.

_ Alright, cat's out of the bag _ , he summed up. _ I need to properly apologize to Iris, and figure out another way to get McMillan. _

Torturing the senator was out of the question, but maybe Smoak could help Barry find some dirt on him—unlikely, otherwise the large number of anti-gun activists in Central City would've done so a while ago.

A beep made him check his cell phone. It was a text message from Hartley.

**_You and _ _police officer_ _ at Maggiore!?! Not sure if I want anything to do with you anymore, hjartaknúsari._**

Barry rolled his eyes, and thought of just ignoring Rathaway when the latter sent a second message.

** _Well, I'll decide after Saturday. I just learned that McMillan will be at the party, so you better come to make the night bearable. I swear, if that guy breathes my way, your boo will have to arrest me for cold-blooded murder._ **

Huh.

If Barry couldn't get to McMillan as Zoom, maybe he could as himself? As Barry Allen, heir to the Thompson-Allen fortune?

The young man hated the pompous elite life, but he couldn’t always avoid it, especially the past few years. 

When he’d announced to his parents that he wanted to work for the police, their disappointment had been milder than he’d feared, but somehow Barry suspected that they had decided to travel the world just so Barry would be forced to represent them in Central City. He had attended more events in the past couple years than he had in college, when every heir and heiress was supposed to start networking with the rest of the 'real world'.

Not that Barry was totally estranged from his parents’ work. Like his father, the bioscience analyst was a co-editor for multiple peer-reviewed scientific journals, and he was an unofficial board of trustees for the Thompson Foundation, his maternal great-great-grandfather’s legacy. His sole duty in his mother’s organization was to lead a bi-annual meeting with the Central City Education Committee, to whom Barry granted funds in his mother's name for educational programs in Central City. That position was passed on from parent to child since Bartholomew Dean Thompson—yep, that’s who Barry got his name from—had created the advanced class program at Central City High School, which was as competitive as its counterparts in the most prestigious private schools in the country. If that program hadn't existed, Barry would have gone to a private school instead of CC High.

_ Okay _ , _ new plan to get McMillan _, Barry decided as he stared at Hartley’s messages before speeding to CCPD.

He easily found Iris, who was yelling at Page and Collins—goodness, she was _ furious _ . Barry immediately felt grateful that she hadn't exploded on _ him _ like that.

“I do all the job for you and _ this _ happens?” the woman was barking at the older detective, who was more than a foot taller than her. “I’ll get internal affairs on your ass, Page, you just wait!”

“I’ll wait,” her former mentor replied calmly, a mocking smile on his face. “‘Till then, how about you go type up your report, huh? Taylor wants me to make a statement first thing in the morning.”

“Well done getting the bastard in here so discreetly by the way,” Collins commented as he gave her a thumbs up. “We don’t even have to deal with those pesky reporters until tomorrow.”

Barry was close enough to Detective West that he was able to grab her by the shoulders when she tried to turn her fury on Collins.

“Hi, Detectives,” he greeted as amiably as he could while withstanding Iris’ murderous glare. “Heard that Detective West arrested the speedster killer. What can I do?”

“Don’t know, ask Miller,” Page answered with a shrug before walking away. “I need that report by eight A.M. tomorrow, West!”

“Well done, really,” Collins congratulated, and he sounded sincere, but Barry could care less about that.

'Ask Miller'? As in Dr. Geri Miller, the _ coroner _?

“They killed him,” Iris informed him quietly as she stepped away from his hold and looked towards the hall leading to the holding cells.

“I stepped away to get coffee before getting the authorization to interrogate Zolomon,” she explained as she closed her eyes and brought her hand to her forehead before letting out a sigh. “It couldn’t have been more than five minutes…When I returned Miller was already there looking at Zolomon's dead body. How could she have known so quickly?”

Coincidence? Barry didn’t think that Miller was dirty. She had probably just started her shift so wasn't in the middle of work when she got called in.

“A few hours ago I would’ve sworn that Miller was one of the good guys,” Detective West claimed, “but if I learned one thing tonight, it’s that people can be _ exceptionally _ good at deceiving others.”

She walked away before Barry realized that she’d taken another jab at him. He was too shocked by the news of Hunter Zolomon’s death to worry about Iris’ anger, so he rushed to the morgue and stepped into Miller’s office.

“Oh, Allen, good timing,” the investigator said in greeting when she looked up from her computer. “I was about to call you, Chris and Patty went home and neither are good with dead bodies. Wanna take a look at the perp? You still measure meta-human genes and what not even when they’re dead, right?”

“That speedster wasn’t a meta-human,” the CSI informed her as he followed her to the examination room.

Zolomon’s body was out on a table, and still decently warm when Barry examined him.

It took him and Dr. Miller close to ten minutes to figure out the cause of death.

“He was poisoned?” Barry suggested as he invited the coroner to look at the needle mark and the surrounded faintly bruised area under his arm.

“The bruising suggests that a needle was jabbed into him,” Miller confirmed. “Oh well. There's definitely foul play at work here, but I can't say that I'm not relieved that this puts an end to the massacres. I've dealt with enough corpses in the past weeks.”

“I’ll run a tox screen,” Barry announced, “I’ll leave you samples for your own tests. Can I come back later with my instruments? He wasn’t a meta-human but he had powers, I just need to confirm beyond doubt that this is our guy.”

“Yeah, sure, knock yourself out,” the coroner agreed. “I don't mean literally, don’t hurt yourself or make a mess in my lab, please.”

The CSI couldn't fake a smile the way he always did when a colleague joked about his clumsiness. He still wasn't over the fact that Bootleg was _ dead _ . Barry had so many questions for the fake speedster, the most important one being which speedster had been experimented on for the military to give him powers. The files that Caitlin had obtained (he hadn't asked _ how _) listed two people with super speed: Edward Clariss and Eliza Harmon (thank goodness the military didn't seem to know about Jesse Wells). Was either of them still alive? What about the other metas?

Barry had to go to his secret base to run the tests faster. He made an interesting discovery, and enrolled Cisco's help to refine his tests—somehow the breacher had been alone at the base, Laurel nowhere to be seen.

Half an hour after examining Zolomon, Barry walked to Iris’ desk. She was typing up her report so furiously that he winced in sympathy for the keyboard.

“Detective West, may I talk to you for a minute?” he requested, and swallowed hard at the sour look she gave him.

“About?” she questioned as she looked back at her screen, slowing down her typing rather than stopping altogether.

“Preliminary conclusions on Zolomon's death,” he answered slowly, “among other things,” he added when Iris stood from her chair.

They locked themselves in a filing room at the back of the third floor, where no one ever went except the clerks during business hours.

"Zolomon overdosed on a substance called V9," the CSI informed the cop as he handed her a tablet from his secret lab, "which he was administered in the early phases of the experiments the military conducted on him.”

“You think it's the military who killed him?" The cop inquired. "How would the military know that I had just arrested him? He was here for maybe half an hour before he died.”

“General Eiling isn’t currently in Central City,” Barry told her. “But we know who is.”

“McMillan,” Iris remembered as she leaned against a tall cabinet after placing the tablet on a lower one, bumping the back of her head against it before letting out a groan of frustration.

She’d tied her hair in a bun, and now was _ not _ the time to be hypnotized by the elegance of her neck, so Barry cleared his throat to get her attention back.

“V9’s active compounds are radioactive,” he let her know. “I was able to detect them on my gloves and even my hands. So unless McMillan was able to sneak in and out of here himself to poison his foster child, whoever poisoned Zolomon still has—”

“Radioactive?” Iris repeated with alarm as she stepped into his personal space, and made to touch him but ended up with her hands hovering over his arms. “Are you okay? Does it hurt?”

“It’s just trace amounts of alpha radiation, nothing dangerous,” Barry let her know as he regardless stepped aside to resist the urge of touching her too, but the heel of his shoe caught on the old carpet.

Fortunately the detective swiftly pulled on his arm before he could trip and fall.

“Easy,” she said gently, a sympathetic smile on her face as she looked up at him.

Her smile fell quickly, and she just as swiftly let him go and stepped back against the tall cabinet.

“Why don’t you just use your speed to save yourself from the embarrassment?” she asked with a frown. “And you have…accelerated cellular regeneration, right? So even if the radiation was toxic, you’d be fine. Guess I'm too stupidly used to worrying about you…”

“Detective, I’m so sorry,” Barry apologized, forcing himself to remain rooted where he stood.

“Sorry for lying to me or sorry for getting caught?” she interrogated him with narrowed eyes.

“I should’ve told you,” he evaded the question. “I never meant to betray your trust, I swear I didn’t, it’s just that…” he trailed off, feeling miserable.

This was so _ not _ how their night together was supposed to go. 

“Keep going, Allen,” she demanded sternly as she crossed her arms. “It’s just that?”

“You’re the epitome of a law enforcer,” he told her, his hand twitching as he resisted the urge to gesticulate. “I knew that—I was certain that you wouldn’t approve of my…um. Criminal activity. I mean, I was right, wasn’t I?”

“I'm not mad about you being a thief," Iris denied. "Well, I guess that's because I _ already _ went through the disappointment of you going from vigilante to thief almost two years ago. I'm well aware that even your parents couldn't have lent you enough money for all those bracelets at once…Do your parents know that you're a speedster?"

"No, they don't," Barry admitted. "And err, at the time I needed the funds they'd actually been victims of a scam. I followed the con artist all the way to some black market hub, and that's how the idea of becoming a criminal to get sufficient funds came to me. If my parents ever asked you, by the way, you helped me get their money back."

"So you lied to me _ and _ your parents, but those criminals on your team know all about you?" The cop reproached him. "Caitlin told me how it all started."

"To be fair, at first I didn't tell Caitlin and Cisco what my powers were," Barry recounted. "But when I decided to build our own base since we'd almost been caught at the S.T.A.R. Labs warehouse where we were making the bracelets, I had to trust them. A friend of theirs was the one who made the blueprint of the building, Ronnie and Cisco helped me with the electrical grid…Until then, except for Caitlin and Frost I didn't even know that the Reverb and Deathstorm I had read about in police reports were the same people who were helping me…"

"You're not the only one with multiple personalities issues, I see," the detective commented sarcastically.

"I had to come up with a different persona to blend in with the others!" Barry explained. "Could you imagine _ me _ trying to give orders to Frost or Siren?"

Iris silently rolled her eyes.

"Iris, please," Barry pleaded. "I'm sorry that I was not completely honest with you…"

"Not completely honest," the detective mockingly echoed his words. "Barry, you pretended to be _ two separate _ people! You…You kept _flirting _with me as Zoom knowing that I had a crush on _ you! _"

"I thought that you meant Patty Spivot when you said that your crush was the cutest nerd you knew," Barry confessed shyly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"What?" Iris exclaimed. "Then why did you only ask me out last week? We've been…Literally eyeing each other for years, and you never seemed interested."

"Oh, umm," the speedster hesitated looking around the room.

"Allen," Iris prompted him impatiently.

"I've _ always _ been interested," he informed her. "It's just that…I didn't think that _ you _ were. Interested in me, I mean. The day I asked you out, I was running high on the success of the mission at Mercury Labs," he admitted carefully. "It made me bold enough to ask you out. Also, there was the hit on your head and, umm, I was scared for you—"

"So what, you thought that you should give us a try before I _ died? _" The cop speculated.

"I would've never let anything happen to you, Detective," Barry objected. "Not that you ever needed protection, but…"

"And I was worried about _ you _ the whole time!" Iris recalled. "I thought that if I was targeted because of the Hammers case, then surely _ you _ would be too as a CSI. I couldn't understand why you were making such a big deal of the shooting when I went to your apartment, but you were freaked out because you'd _ seen _ me getting shot at with your own eyes, weren’t you? Without your intervention, Floyd and I could've been seriously hurt."

"Yeah," the speedster confirmed.

A tense silence settled between them, and Iris sighed again.

"Barry, I thought I was attracted to _two_ different men," the detective confessed in turn as she held up two fingers. "I was struggling with my attraction to the thief I had failed to arrest for over a year and a half. I felt so conflicted, and _ wrong _, for feeling that way, especially when I already had feelings for you!"

"You have feelings for me?" Barry repeated, hopeful.

"That's _ not _ the part I'm trying to stress out here," Iris chides him. "Why would you even try to get close to me as a criminal, when we could've gotten closer as colleagues?"

"I didn't think that you were interested in _ me _ _!_" He insisted. "You know me from high school, the awkward rich kid nobody wanted to hang out with…"

"Barry, _ I _ knew you as the _ brilliant _ kid at CC High," the detective corrected him. "And I've been complimenting you not so subtly to your face for years…Jesus, I sang your praises to Zoom so often. That must have fed your ego!"

"No!” Barry denied passionately, only to deflate at her raised eyebrow. “I mean, _ yes _, but it's not—I thought it was all just…professional admiration," the CSI rephrased. "You're always generous with your praise here at work, so yeah I was always happy to hear that you think highly of me, but—"

"Barry, I compliment you because I _ like _ you," the cop explained. "I don't go around praising the other CSIs, especially not _ Spivot _. She always speaks in some alien science language and look at me weird when I can't follow."

"Oh," Barry reacted quietly. "I mean, after we kissed...I thought that—that you might be interested for sure, physically, I mean…I have feelings for you too?"

_Lamest and most awkward confession of the history of confessions,_ he noted internally. 

"Yet you played with me," Iris accused him. "And you didn't trust me to help you assist the other meta-humans when I _ know _ that I'm the one who gave you the idea. Not about the power-suppressing bracelets, of course, but the idea of helping those who metas who needed help and support…Barry, you didn't tell your parents either, and…” 

Barry panicked a little when he heard the crack in the detective's voice just as he saw tears gathering in her eyes.

"I remember that day with the crazy storm," she told him quietly all anger gone, "I remember feeling like something was wrong with you even though you said you were okay when you got back from the old factory. And I remember asking if you had anyone in your corner back when you were The Streak…You did all these crazy things _on your own_, when you didn’t have to. I could've been there for you, Barry, but you didn't trust me to help you."

"You helped me, you _ did! _" Barry corrected her, and he gave into the urge to step closer and put a gentle hand on her arm when she lowered her head to discreetly wipe her tears. "You were there for me every step of the way, even though you didn't realize it at the time. I really hated my powers at first because I couldn't control them, but when I became a vigilante…” 

She looked up at him, doing an impressive job at keeping her face neutral though the speedster could detect a slight tremble of her lower lip.

“Detective, assisting you when you were on patrol was the greatest time of my life,” he let her know with a reassuring smile and a tiny squeeze of her arm. “I always enjoy working with you during the day, but that's _ after _ a crime has been committed. Helping people _ before _ the criminals could do any irreparable damage? It was amazing. And afterwards we'd talk, a lot, and whereas you're always so professional with me during the day, as The Streak, it felt like we were _ friends _…"

Iris looked away, but Barry detected a hint of fondness in the slight lift of her lips, so he kept going.

"_ That's _ why I started flirting with you as Zoom," he explained more quietly. "Even though I'd become a criminal, I couldn't bear not being able to talk to you like we used to, I just…I never thought that I had a chance with you as _ myself _ because I didn't discern any sign. It always seemed like we were from different worlds even though we both work for the police."

"Well, we kind of are from different worlds, aren’t we?” the cop agreed as she gently extracted herself from his hold. “You _ are _ rich, Barry.”

“Iris,” the CSI deflated.

“Not that it’s ever bothered me,” she added immediately with a shake of her head. “Your family has done so much for this city, it still does. You’re good people. So I apologize for…Making it sound like I was putting you in the same category as McMillan earlier. Your deception didn't hurt people like McMillan's did, it only hurt my ego. You’re totally different from the senator. I was lashing out because I was hurt, but I wasn’t fair to you."

"Thank you, Detective," Barry acknowledged. “You don’t know how much hearing you say this means to me. And I’m truly sorry for deceiving you.”

"Yeah, well," Iris said as she turned away from him to grab the tablet. "We have better things to do than talk about feelings, anyways.”

Part of Barry disagreed. He’d love to talk feelings for hours, until Iris forgave him and maybe gave their relationship another chance.

But just like her, he wanted to solve Zolomon's murder.

“Whether it’s Page or Collins or McMillan…_ Someone _ killed my prisoner, and I want them to pay," the cop bit out.

She stared at him and her eyes suggested that an idea had just popped up in her head.

"You haven't mentioned Slick and Rothstein," she noted, "is that a bust?"

"Yeah, sorry," Barry apologized. 

"Yeah, no, it's alright, I didn't expect much," the detective admitted as she gave him back the tablet. "McMillan wouldn't send his own foster kids to get to me if he thought that they could rat him out. But we need to get justice for those Hammers thugs _ and _ Zolomon, Barry. Hunter never asked for those powers. He was a man with mental problems who should've never even been in the army. McMillan used him. For what? I'm not sure. But if he colluded with Eiling, he's even worse news than I thought."

"I have Cisco recalibrating a Geiger counter so that we can better detect traces of the V9 radiation," the CSI informed her. "The levels of radiation that I detected on me were minimal so we need a more precise instrument to detect levels that would be even fainter for someone who handled the substance earlier than me."

"I hate to ask but..." Iris started. "Could you speed around the precinct to check on everyone?”

"Sure thing," Barry confirmed with a barely contained smile.

"Just don’t get caught," the detective warned him. "This is CCPD, we all have meta-cuffs here, and I can’t fake not wanting to arrest you."

Had he been in his suit Barry would’ve found the courage to make a sexual innuendo right there.

_ Guess that’s not an option anymore _, he sighed internally.

"I'll be fine," he assured her right before his smartwatch beeped. "That's Cisco," he let her know before paging his teammate back.

Iris frowned at him when he waited expectantly, and startled when a breach appeared on the other side of the room.

"Eh," the breacher said as he stepped in, looking back and forth between Barry and Iris. "Am I interrupting something?"

"No," they answered at the same time.

"Uh-huh," he teased before handing the Geiser counter to the speedster. "I called Caitlin to confirm: taking into account the nuclear decay rate, you should be able to externally detect V9 that was handled up to three hours ago."

"It's been just past an hour since Zolomon died," Iris estimated.

"Thanks man," Barry told Reverb as he turned on the device. "Found Laurel?"

"I _ did _," Cisco answered bitterly. "Guess who’s Rathaway’s plus one for his father’s party this weekend?" he asked pointedly. 

"No way," the speedster reacted, "I mean, she and Hartley are branches of the same tree, in a way. You can come as my plus one if you want. I plan on bugging McMillan when I talk to him at the party."

“That’s a great idea!” Reverb complimented with a snap of his fingers.

“That’s illegal,” Iris intervened, crossing her arms and giving them both a disapproving look.

"Oh yeah, it is illegal, isn’t it," the breacher agreed, properly chastised, and Barry barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes at him.

Cisco had done so much worse than secretly listening on people's conversations in the past.

“But hey, aren’t you two going together, anyway?” his teammate asked as he perked up. “Make McMillan sweat a bit when he sees that he’s been targeting the girlfriend of the sole heir of the Allen-Thompson fortune…”

“I’m not his girlfriend,” Iris denied with a clipped voice just as Barry closed his eyes and dropped his head in mortification.

“Well, McMillan doesn’t know that,” Reverb replied slowly in his 'duh!' voice. “I mean, aren’t you pissed? He almost got you killed, and totally ruined your efforts in getting Bootleg in custody. The system’s rigged, Detective West. Take your wins where you can!”

“I’ll take your unsolicited advice into consideration,” the cop drawled as she openly rolled her eyes at the breacher.

“Hey, I helped too!” Cisco reminded as he pointed at the Geiser counter. “We haven’t made any money in weeks because of _your_ case! So I’m pissed that McMillan is getting away with putting a hit on you.” 

“Is everything about money for you?” the detective asked accusingly.

“No, which is _why_ I’ll be satisfied with just you two putting some fear into McMillan,” the breacher answered. “He thinks himself above the law, but he definitely knows that he’s below Central City’s one percent!”

“Cisco,” Barry chided his friend.

“You know what? He’s right.” Iris acknowledged, tilting her head at the breacher before turning her gaze to the speedster.

“What?” Barry reacted.

“Bring me as your plus one,” she demanded with a firm nod. “I’d like to see the man who wants me dead face to face. Who knows? He might give me something to work with, under pressure. The element of surprise will work in my favor.”

“He could've have seen us earlier at Maggiore,” Barry pointed out. “So he might not be surprised to see us...together. You know.”

“But he doesn’t know that we know that he put a hit on my head,” Iris countered. “Just that Zoom knows that his men shot me.”

“True,” Barry acknowledged.

It’s not that he didn’t want to go to the party with Iris, he very much did, but…

This was clearly not a real date. It _ would _ be their first official public appearance together, and Barry could bet on people telling his parents about it—all his money on Sandy Palmer telling his mom first—so to him it was a big deal but clearly Iris did not think the same.

“Well, either way, as long as you ruin Rathaway and Laurel’s date,” Cisco said as he pointed at Barry.

“Why would I do that?” the speedster asked, apprehensive.

“Oh, you don’t have to _ do _ anything, just show up,” his friend let him know. “They can barely stop themselves from drooling all over you in your suit, I bet they’ll be bitter that you didn't take either of them as your plus one when they see you in a tux.”

Barry was about to say that it wouldn’t happen when Iris suddenly coughed.

“Hey, about the radiation? Aren’t we on a time crunch, here?” she reminded him in an odd tone.

“Oh, right, sorry” Barry apologized. “I’ll be right back.”

He refused to overthink the glare the detective gave Reverb as the latter waved at him with one hand and opened a breach with another.

* * *

  
  


Turned out that it was Page who had killed Zolomon, and he got suspended for it. That meant that Iris was turned into the official lead detective of the Hammers case.

She would've been ecstatic to be able to say the words she'd typed herself to the press if not for the fact that Captain Taylor forbade her to divulge the fact that Zolomom was not a meta-human. Even with Barry arguing the veracity of his evidence, the chief didn't bulge.

"We don't need people to worry about another breed of freaks running the streets," the older cop explained to the detective and the CSI in his office. "Especially not when this one has been the most murderous of all in three years."

Iris couldn't help but notice Barry's reaction to the word _ freaks _.

The detective had seen the CSI blink like that countless times before at people calling meta-humans all sort of derogatory names, and all this time she had thought that he was simply surprised by people's ignorance or bigotry. All this time, he had endured hearing cops insulting or spouting hate at what he was.

"Understood, West?" Captain Taylor's voice brought Iris out of her musings.

"Yes, sir," she acknowledged.

"Now go get some sleep," the chief ordered. "I can't imagine that you were out there hunting down a meta-human on your night off. You too, Allen! Aren't you on leave?"

"Ah, well, sir…" Barry stuttered, earning a huff from their boss. 

"After we're done with the press conference tomorrow, I don't want to see either of you for the rest of the week," Taylor ordered as he stood from his chair and stepped aside to grab his jacket. "It's an order."

"Yes, sir," they echoed, and the captain rolled his eyes at them before waving them out of his office.

Iris checked the time. It was past one in the morning. No wonder she was dead on her feet.

She was drinking a cup of water in one of the quiet break rooms, wondering if she'd left a blanket the last time she'd slept at the precinct, when she saw Barry hover at the door.

"Is there a problem?" She asked as she looked up at him.

He walked in and opened his mouth twice without saying anything, and she sighed impatiently.

"Barry, I'm exhausted," she let him know, " so either you speak up in the next ten seconds or you wait in the morning to share your thoughts."

"Would you like me to get you home?" He asked hesitantly.

"The home where McMillan might have sent people to shoot me?" She reminded him with a scoff.

That got a slight blush out of the speedster, but he shook his head.

"Oh, I meant, my place," he specified, rubbing his hand to the back of his neck.

A gasp came out at the door, and Iris leaned to the side to see past Barry's tall frame.

It was Lawton.

"Hey," she greeted. "Took your sweet time to get here."

"It's our night off!" He reminded her. "Couldn't you wait until the morning? And did I just hear Allen invite you to his place?"

Barry's blush intensified, and he started shuffling his feet.

Iris' partner approached the counter and turned on the coffee machine—she herself wanted a steamy cup of latte so badly, but she needed to rest—and gave Barry a condescending once over.

"Gotta give it to you, Allen, you've got heavier balls than I thought," Floyd declared with a nod. "I'm in a generous mood tonight, I won't tell anyone that you tried to get frisky with West. Go back to your beakers before she actually chews you one about frat rules."

CCPD didn't have frat rules forbidding employees from different departments to date each other. The previous people Iris had 'chewed one about frat rules' had been cops like her, Collins of all people being one of them. Dany Fischer, the last cop to invite Iris on a date, was actually from Traffic so Detective West had rejected her nicely.

If Iris hadn't been interested in Barry, she might have said yes to Fischer. Danielle was funny and down to earth and she was one of the few other cops who wasn't unreasonably scared of or hateful towards meta-humans.

"I'm from a different department," the CSI reminded Lawton, though his wide eyes and red cheeks indicated that he felt properly chastised.

Iris blinked as she saw the man who had already taken her on a date take steps backwards and stutter goodbyes.

What. The. Hell. He wasn't even going to fight for it?

"Wait," she said, and Barry stopped moving as he was about to turn around and leave the room.

He had that adorable deer in the headlights look, and Iris almost sighed in exasperation at her weakness for that face.

Instead she glared at her partner. 

"Feel free to tell everyone that he tried…" she encouraged Floyd, who was looking for a mug in the cabinet.

"That's harsh, West, but alright" he replied when he looked at her.

"...because he succeeded," she added with a lift of her chin before walking towards Barry.

She grabbed his arm and led him out of the room as Lawton cursed for almost dropping his mug because of his shock.

The people who saw Iris and Barry leave through the entrance door didn't wait for West's partner to start whispering.

To Iris' dismay, however, the whispers were speculating that she was making Allen take some fresh air because he was hyperventilating, or that she was about to lecture him on his clumsiness after he'd broken something. None of them assumed that they were a couple.

_ "I didn't think that you were interested in me!" _ Barry had claimed earlier, and now Iris believed that he had been sincere.

"Detective," the CSI called out when they reached the parking lot, tugging the arm she was pulling him with.

Iris let go and turned around to face him, and in the dim light of the lampposts, she remembered that this shy young man was the same cocky thief who'd shamelessly flirted with her, his vibrating voice giving her delicious shivers when he rolled her name on his tongue like he wanted to kiss her.

Goosebumps erupted on her skin when she realized that Barry was appraising her in the same curious way she was looking at him.

"I could take you to the base, if you'd prefer," he told her carefully. "Your belongings are there, so—"

"We can stop by so I can take a change of clothes, yeah," she replied, "but I don't want to stay there. I don't want to deal with your secret life right now. I'm still not over the fact that you _ have _ a secret life."

"I'm sorry for…" Barry tried to apologize but she shook her head vigorously. 

"Barry, I told you, I'm exhausted," she reminded him. "I think you'll agree that tonight has been unexpectedly eventful."

"Yeah," he confirmed quietly, and she took his hand in hers when he started shifting his weight on his feet again.

She felt the shiver that ran through him, and blinked at the tiny sparks of electricity that stung her skin.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry, Detective," the speedster apologized as he removed his hand from hers. 

Iris shrugged. "I'm fine, it didn't hurt," she reassured him. "But I thought that you now could completely control your powers? All these years you never slipped up—"

_ Yes. _ Yes he had. The detective remembered, quite vividly, how she'd felt Barry vibrate when she'd kissed him two nights ago. The odd reaction had even made her think of Zoom. 

Little had she known…

"_ I _make you lose control of your powers?" she questioned, regretting her words the second they were out of her lips because they made it sound like…Something.

Barry's silent stare made her feel even more self-conscious about the implications of the secret she'd learned a few hours ago.

Barry was Zoom. Zoom was Barry.

The man she liked and the man she was irresistibly attracted to were one and the same.

What had she been mad about, again?

"I'm still upset that you hid all this from me," she forced herself to warn the speedster as she waved an all-encompassing hand.

"Yes, of course, I understand," he quickly replied. "And I'm truly sorry, Detective, I am."

_ Call me Iris _, she wanted to ask him, but she wasn't sure if she was in the right mindset to hear him say her name with the tone he was using right now. He sounded equally apologetic, hopeful, and _ longing_.

"I think that I'll stay here, after all," she decided out loud as she looked back at the precinct.

"What?"

"Yeah, I should take some time to get Lawton caught up on what happened," she reasoned. "No just on Zolomon but also Page, and he doesn't know that I'll have the next days off…"

"Detective?" Barry sounded disappointed, and Iris needed to build immunity to the matching look he gave her, because she decided right there that she wasn't going to break things off with him.

_ We like each other _, she thought to herself. _ And he apologized for lying about his identity. I'm not that okay with him being a thief, but I'm sure I can convince him to stop if it keeps bothering me. It would be so stupid to break up when we're not even a real couple yet. Maybe I'll find other reasons not to be with him, normal reasons. It's not like I'm making a huge _ _commitment or anything by dating him._

"I'll see you later," she said before speed walking back to the precinct, ignoring the way he whispered her name in confusion.

It was only half an hour later, tucked under a blanket with her hair gathered in two braids (she'd take them down before anyone could see her in the morning) that Iris remembered that she'd asked Barry to take her to a fancy event, where all of Central City's one percent would see her as _his girlfriend_.

_ You idiot, _ she chided herself before slipping into sleep.

When she woke up the next day, Iris risked going back to her apartment to take a quick shower and look presentable for the press conference.

She quickly stunned a man who tried to assault her from a side alley as she left her place, but he looked like a typical mugger so she cuffed him and got a rookie to drop him in a cell when she got back to the precinct.

"Ready to face the vultures, West?" Collins asked her when he approached her desk as she reviewed her speech a few minutes before she and Michaels* faced the press.

Collins looked as formal as her, wearing his uniform rather than casual clothes like last night. 

"You sound way too chipper, considering that Page got suspended," Iris observed.

"Page was getting foolish with old age," the other detective claimed as he took a seat on the other side of her desk, uninvited. "He was trying too hard to please McMillan," he added in a hushed tone, leaning over. "I don't like that guy. Arms traffickers, I can roll with. But I don't deal with human traffickers. If the man can sell away his own kid, what guarantee do I have that he won't throw me away at the first opportunity he gets?"

"Your struggles as a dirty cop aren't any of my business, Collins," Iris made clear, her voice quiet but still stern. 

"Oh, you're still playing the holier than thou cop, West?" he asked with a chuckle. "I'm not stupid. You're good, arguably the best of us here, but even _ you _ couldn't have arrested that serial killer with super speed on your own, without a fuss to boot. You got help, and it wasn't any of us with a badge."

Detective West tried to keep her expression neutral as her heartbeat took off.

"Whatever lies you want to spread about me, go ahead and spread them," she said slowly and she was the one leaning over her desk this time, channeling all of her determination in her eyes. "I'll never be a sell out like you. Whatever I do, I do it to uphold my vow to protect my _ city _, never to make a profit."

Collins stared back at her for a moment before letting out a long sigh. 

"You're really hot when you go all out with the good cop spiel, West, you know that?" He taunted her with a one-sided smirk. "I say fuck frat rules, you and I could rule Central City together. You'll need someone reliable by your side when you become a level three, which should be soon enough. I'm a better side-kick than that two left feet, out of style, science babbling fool of Allen."

"You don't know what I need," Iris informed him as she stood up from her chair and walked away.

The hardest part about the conference ended up being able to look ahead with all the flashes in her eyes—seriously, who needed extra lighting on a clear spring day?

The second hardest part was not correcting the assumption that Zolomon was a meta-human, and the third hardest part was keeping her voice level as she reminded the reporters who were already branding meta-humans as Central City's greatest danger that there had been serial killers without powers before Zolomon and that there might be serial killers without powers after him. But CCPD would be there to arrest them all. No one was above the law, not even the people responsible for making the Hammers such a prominent gang over the years. 

An hour later, Taylor lectured Iris for making such a bold final statement, but she didn't apologize for it.

Which was why she was in shock when the entire precinct applauded her promotion to level three detective the following minute.

"Can't wait for you to make it Captain," Elisa Carter, the only other female detective at their precinct, commented behind a hand. 

Iris remembered to smile knowingly at her colleague before she eyed Page's office—Page’s _ former _ office , which would become _hers_ when she returned from her short leave. 

Taylor had informed her that a case against the dirty cop had been anonymously dropped on his desk, and that internal affairs would review it a.s.a.p. Page was definitely not keeping his badge.

Joy and pride finally settled in when Iris left the precinct, and she barely restrained her laugh when she reached her car.

Finally. _Finally_, she was a level three. Her name would go down in the annals of Central City's honorary public servants even if she didn’t die while in active duty.

Of course, Iris didn't work hard to get praised, but she felt so proud of herself, so proud of her younger self for persevering when times had been tough.

When her high school friends were off to college or more rewarding occupations while she enrolled in the academy.

When she envied Linda for being able to dress in the latest fashion at work, while she herself was stuck with functional attire all year long.

When meta-humans surfaced and she had to train even harder to be able to run after criminals while wearing heavy protective gear.

When she had to decline Becky Cooper's invitation to her grand wedding with some rich businessman from Coast City, because after breaking the heel of her only designer shoes to arrest a meta on her day off, she wasn't in the mood to splurge into a dress just to get a harsh reminder that she was still single with too little time to do anything about it.

When Taylor promised to promote her as soon as she arrested Zoom, which meant _ never _.

When she decided to take over the Hammers case even though Page would get all the credit for her work.

Finally, after all she had done for the city, it felt like she _ mattered _.

“I hear that felicitations are in order, level three Detective West,” Zoom’s vibrating voice resonated behind her.

Iris didn’t care that it was the middle of the day, and that anyone could see her throwing herself into a criminal’s arms. She was so stupidly happy that she might have smiled at McMillan if she'd seen him right there.

“Thanks,” she replied, her voice muffled against his chest. “You’re the one who dropped that anonymous case about Page, aren’t you?” she asked as she pulled away, pleased to be able to stare into his green eyes.

“Guilty as charged,” he confirmed with a grin. “How did you know?”

“I heard you asking for a ‘solid, court-admissible evidence that Detective Eric Page is dirty’ from that hacker of yours when we entered Mercury Labs indoor docking site,” Iris admitted. “You sounded pissed, which is probably why you didn’t realize that you were whispering a bit too loudly.”

Barry shrugged in acknowledgment, still smiling.

“Page getting fired was as overdue as you getting promoted,” he commented as he surveilled their surroundings. “Would you mind if I got us out of here?”

“What, are you trying to steal me for yourself, speedster?” she teased him, laughing when he blushed under his mask.

“Come on, be happy that I can already make jokes about it,” she told him with a tap on his shoulder. “And I actually want to stop by CCPN to check on my friend Linda.”

Iris’ best friend had cryptically asked if she would be free for a girls’ night some time, which was code for ‘we need to talk a.s.a.p’. Linda was probably worried about her after learning that she’d been leading a case with a speedster serial killer as the prime suspect.

“Alright, CCPN it is,” Barry acknowledged as he scooped her in his arms, and before Iris could protest, strands of her hair had escaped her bun and she was standing at the deserted terrace at the back of the Central City Public News building.

Not seeing Barry anywhere, Iris took out her phone and called Linda.

“Wow, I didn’t expect you to contact me so soon!” the sports reporter said as a greeting. “Aren’t you drowning in paperwork right now?”

“Unlike you, I don’t wait until the last minute to submit my reports,” the cop teased as she took a seat on a bench. "I’m outside, if you can sneak out for a minute.”

“No way, really? How did you make it here so fast?” her best friend asked, noises of her moving around picked up by the microphone of her phone. “The press conference was live, wasn’t it?”

Iris hung up without answering when she started hearing echoes of her best friend's voice, and stood up right in time for Linda to walk out the back door and hug her tightly.

“How did you even find parking around here?” the reporter questioned her. “It feels like every single employee is here today. My boss is having a field day with that Hammers case. One of the investigative reporters is writing an exposé on the Hammers and the gun problem in Central City. Any off-record comment on that?”

“They might find something worthy of a front page if they can make a connection between some of the Hammers who were killed and the shooters at Heidon last week,” Iris gave the hint. “Also off-the-record, someone at CCPD is getting fired for dealing with arms traffickers.”

“Oh my god,” Linda reacted. “No wonder those guys are roaming free, you guys are letting them! I mean not you, obviously. _You_’re arresting speedsters, apparently!”

The last part was accompanied by a slap at Iris' shoulder, which made her yelp in surprise rather than pain.

“How could you go after a serial killer with super speed, you mad woman?” her best friend reprimanded her. “The only meta-human criminal you’re allowed to chase after is Zoom! The guy’s more of a gentleman than most of the supposedly upstanding people of our city.”

Iris did her best not to look guilty as she scoffed at the comment.

“Speaking of upstanding people of our city,” Linda resumed, and the sing-song of her voice mildly alarmed Iris. “Remember me telling you that Tony Woodward from high school is a quarterback for the Chiefs now? And that he’s nice to me during sports events in the hope of getting close to you?”

“Yeah?” Iris confirmed, frowning when her best friend swiped around on her phone before shoving the screen in her face.

“Well, look what he sent me last night!” Linda instructed with an odd edge to her voice.

_ Damn it, Park! Why didn’t you tell me that Iris was taken? By that loser of Allen, of all people! _

The message came with a picture of Iris and Barry exiting Maggiore, smiling at each other like idiots in love.

Was it normal that Iris was more smug about her and Barry looking amazing together than worried that her feelings for him were so visible?

“You’re dating Barry _freaking_ Allen!” Linda almost shouted as she waved her phone around. “And he took you to the most expensive Italian restaurant in Central City! _Why_ didn’t you tell me???” the reporter asked, outraged.

“I would have if I hadn’t spent the rest of the night trying to catch the most dangerous serial killer in the history of Central City!” Iris replied, half amused half exasperated. “Did you not watch the press conference?”

Linda narrowed her eyes at her, but calmed down and then beamed, flapping her hands around in excitement.

“Oh my god, you _are_ dating Barry freaking Allen!” she repeated. “When did the guy get so handsome and sexy, anyways? You gave him a makeover or what? Last time I visited CCPD he did _ not _ look this good!” she added with a finger on her phone screen.

“Apparently he looks even better in a tuxedo,” Iris commented cheekily, remembering Cisco’s words last night.

“Girl, you’re dating one of the most eligible bachelors of Central City, you know that, right?” Linda told her seriously as she squeezed her hand in warning. “I know you’re the most badass cop out here in these streets, but I’ve been to enough events with the upper class to tell you that bitter rich women are more lethal than serial killers. Don’t go to any fancy event with Allen without being thoroughly prepared—”

“Too late,” Iris let her know, worry making her stomach turn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left, guys! I'm not done writing it but it's centered around the Rathaway party.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments are always appreciated.
> 
> *Michaels is the PR/press liaison at CCPD, mentioned in chapter 3.


	22. Part 6_Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tying up some loose ends, plus part 1/2 of the Rathaway's party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changed the chapter count 🙃
> 
> I'm not ready for this week's episode 😖

Barry took advantage of the time Iris spent with her reporter friend to call his parents.

His mother chided him for not telling them that he was the lead CSI of such a serious case, but just like his father she congratulated him on a job well done.

"You're going to Osgood's birthday party, aren't you?" Nora Allen asked her son.

For once, Barry's mother sounded more curious than pleading. She knew that he hated the pompous events, and normally she didn't miss reminding him that the Palmer brothers made the effort to attend the annual event with their mother even though they had busy lives in Star City.

But there was something akin to expectations in Nora's tone that put the speedster on alert.

"Yes, mom, I'm going," he answered her carefully.

"And are you bringing anyone as your plus one?" his mother followed up.

Barry let out a long sigh.

Of course she knew. Just because Barry himself hadn't noticed anyone he knew at Maggiore on his date with Iris didn't mean that people who knew him hadn't noticed him in return.

"Was Sandy Palmers at Maggiore?" he guessed.

"I'm the one asking the questions here, young man," Nora chided him. "Yes, Sandy saw you with, and I quote: 'a stunning beauty who had Barry totally hypnotized'. But she couldn't identify your date, which is odd, because Sandy is from Central City so she should know everyone. Is it someone from SCU?"

"Or rather, someone from CC High?" Barry's father chimed in.

"Wait, it can't be Rebecca Cooper, isn't she married now?" Nora asked. "And though she is pretty, I wouldn't call her a stunning beauty."

"Come on, honey, think a little bit," the doctor teased his wife. "A stunning beauty from CC High, capable of hypnotizing Barry…He most likely didn't have the courage to ask her out back then, but he's had the chance to interact with her on a regular basis these past couple years…" 

"Oh my God!" Nora exclaimed, a bit too loud for Barry since he was using his suit's com. "Iris West!?"

"I'm right, am I not, slugger?" Barry's father asked.

Barry wondered if his father would've uncovered his secret identity had he not been abroad most of the time ever since Barry got his powers. The physician was uncannily observant.

"Yes, it's Iris," the speedster admitted. "And yes I'm bringing her to Mr. Rathaway's party."

"So it's serious between you two? Am I to expect a wedding soon?" his mother drilled him. "Tell me now if you want us to pick up an engagement ring for you, the diamond selection here in Atlantis is dreamy, really!"

"Mom!" Barry reacted, overwhelmed by her zeal.

Not like his heart wasn’t beating a little faster at the idea of proposing to the woman he loved so much.

Speaking of Iris, from his vantage point on the roof across the CCPN building, the speedster could see her exchanging a goodbye hug with her friend Linda. 

"Hey dad, mom, I gotta go now," he let his parents know.

"You told us that you have the next two weeks off," Henry recalled, and Barry could _hear_ him smile. "Where are you headed in such a hurry?"

"Dad," the speedster sighed in amusement. His parents were so silly when they paired up against him.

"Make sure to tell Iris that we said hi," Nora almost singsonged. "And congratulate her on the arrest. We have been worried about these meta-human criminals, but it seems that you guys are handling them just fine.”

“We're proud of you, slugger,” Henry added. “For putting your talents to the service of the entire city, and for readily facing danger no one could’ve expected of you. You never complain about your job, which must much more hands-on that what it would've been if you'd worked in a private lab.”

“Iris is the one who’s out in the field arresting criminals, doing the hard part of the job,” Barry reminded his parents.

“Without the evidence you collect and process, convicting criminals would still be hard,” Nora pointed out. “But I’m very proud of you for getting the attention of such an outstanding woman, sweetheart. I always knew that Iris would get very far in life. You know, after a few more promotions she could run for mayor…”

“For real?” Barry said in exasperation, smiling when his parents laughed in response. “Alright, bye you two. Love you.”

“Love you too, Bear! Take care.” Mr. and Mrs. Allen replied in unison before he hung up.

He sped down the building and was pleased to see Iris barely blink at him reappearing out of nowhere.

“Everything okay?” he asked cautiously as he noticed that the detective looked less jovial than before she talked with her friend. “How’s Linda?”

“Linda’s fine!” the cop answered with forced cheer. “But I just realized that I promised her that we would spend my next days off together, so—”

Barry was glad that he was wearing his mask, and therefore didn’t have to try too hard to hide his disappointment.

“I’ll stay at Linda’s until Saturday,” Iris announced. “If McMillan seems resolute to get rid of me after the party, then I’ll stay at your place if your invitation still stands. I don’t want my friend to get in trouble because I’m the target of a gun lobbyist.”

“Saturday,” Barry repeated. “After the party, then?”

“If that’s okay?” Iris requested, looking at him with a steady and intense gaze. 

It’s not that Barry was getting any idea but…Should he be mentally prepared for, possibly—

“Yeah, of course, sure,” he fumbled a bit, which was so rare for him to do when he was in his suit.

He would definitely miss flirting with Iris as Zoom.

“Let’s go before someone comes this way,” the detective suggested as she eyed the newspaper building. “We’re lucky that the offices are on the opposite side of the building, or a picture of us could’ve ended in the evening newspaper.” 

They both chuckled at the idea as the speedster lifted her in his arms.

He sped them to the base so she could pack up her belongings, and was surprised to get an alert after he changed into civilian clothes (maybe they could still go to lunch together?)

“What’s up?” Barry asked to no one in particular as he phased into the monitoring room. Cisco, Bette, Ronnie and Caitlin were present.

“_ First of all _, please use the security protocols so you don’t give me a heart attack when you walk through here,” Cisco requested. “And check out what we found.”

The speedster looked up at the projected screen, and his eyes widened at the scans of a small underground facility just outside Ford Wood, the military base.

“Official records say that this compound was shut down ten years because of an architectural flaw,” Ronnie stated. “I can’t tell from our current scans what that flaw is, but if the army decided that it isn’t safe, I trust them.”

“And _ that’s _ where they’re holding tortured and very likely drugged meta-humans,” Caitlin pointed out, sounding upset. “If the building was to collapse, Eiling and his team would probably leave them to get buried alive!”

“What _ can _ our current scans tell us about that compound?” Zoom asked as he looked at the data, finding them lacking. 

Topographic scans provided rough blueprint of the uppermost level, and live heat signature scans showed that there were a dozen people on that level, armed by the look of it. But that was it. No idea of what online signal was going through, no IP address to hack, no outline of the electrical grid...No useful detail.

“When can we get in?” the team leader inquired as he looked at his hacker. “We need to get these metas out of there asap.”

“I texted Laurel so that she and I can go on a recon mission,” Cisco informed him. “She can get us an ultrasound image of the whole thing—bet you what we’re seeing right here is only the tip of the iceberg—and I can vibe some of the dangerous zones inside.”

“Or I could speed in and out of the place,” Barry suggested, knowing it was a stupid idea.

“They might have the same power-dampening signal as Mercury Labs,” Bette warned. “And meta-tranq gas, in an _ underground _ compound. Do we yet have masks for those?”

“We don’t even know the gas formula,” Caitlin informed the group. “I have a lead on where to get it, but until then it remains our A.H.”

“Good thing that not all of us here are vulnerable to that, then,” Iris’s voice came behind Barry, who startled.

She was with Laurel, who scoffed when the speedster glared at her for sneaking in before he glared at Cisco for whispering ‘taste of your own medicine’.

“So, what’s the plan?” Laurel asked as she frowned at the incomplete scans of the compound. “Recon tonight, rescue tomorrow, pizza party with the rescues on Friday?”

“Don’t you already have a party to go to on Saturday?” her boyfriend pointed out bitterly. “Leave the pizza party to us peasants.”

“You’re sure about this?” Barry whispered to Iris as he stepped closer to her, searching her eyes as soon as they left the large screen to meet his.

“The cop in me doesn’t like the prospect of trespassing on military ground,” she admitted just as quietly, “but I was serious when I said that I would’ve helped you protect meta-humans from the start, Barry. Let me help you now. Please.”

If they weren't in the middle of his operation room surrounded by his teammates, Barry would've kissed Iris right then, not just to express his gratitude, but because he’d just fallen in love with her all over again.

* * *

"You look…" Barry started, trailing off as his gaze swept over Iris' form.

Iris knew that she looked great in that long burgundy maxi dress with a deep keyhole neckline and a modest off-center leg slit—it was a designer brand, which she’d gotten along with a few others _ for free _ after Linda had hooked her up with a new high end clothing store that would benefit from the publicity. Apparently being the woman who’d arrested the most dangerous serial killer of the city’s history put her on the short list of most wanted customers by local businesses.

"...exquisite," Barry finished his sentence as he quickly brought his eyes back up to hers after eyeing the silver chain sewn into the collar of the dress, which dipped into her cleavage.

"Get her home before midnight, Allen," Linda joked from the entrance door of her apartment building just as Barry’s chauffeur carefully placed Iris’ suitcase in the trunk of the limo-hover.

(And only now Iris was reminded why Barry didn’t own a car: his parents already owned a few and _ paid _ people to drive them)

"Thank you Barry," she finally replied with a wide smile just as she appraised him in turn. "You look very handsome yourself."

Handsome was definitely a euphemism. Cisco had been right that Barry was drool-worthy in a tuxedo: unlike the suits he wore at work that made him look too tall and skinny, this truly showcased his lean and _toned_ figure.

And tonight his hair was combed away from his forehead.

The joke that people should get arrested for being too sexy had never sounded funny to Detective West, but right now she was seriously contemplating locking up her own colleague for being so attractive tonight.

It would be for his own protection, really.

"Thanks," he breathed out, blushing slightly at the hungry gaze she was probably giving him, oops.

"Shall we?" he added more confidently as he held the backseat door for her.

Both of them shivered as Iris brushed past him to take a seat, and Iris’ heart rate picked up as she heard the quiet gasp that escaped her boyfriend’s lips.

There was no doubt to Iris that Barry _ was _ her boyfriend at this point. Not after the way they’d been all over each other on Thursday, kissing and touching and whispering I love you’s before Caitlin had needed the biochemist’s help to analyze the rescued meta-humans blood samples.

Iris and Zoom’s team had stormed the secret compound just in time to save one of the dozen kidnapped people, Dominic Lanse, from being lobotomized.

With the exception of Iris almost getting shot right after she deactivated the power-dampening signal of the facility—in hindsight, the near death experience had likely prompted their makeout session—the mission had gone smoothly. The group of thieves had spent the past couple days helping rehabilitate twelve meta-humans who according to Dr. Snow had been severely drugged, malnourished and dehydrated.

On Thursday night, Iris had toured more of the base than she had until then, admiring the full potential of the facility: the infirmary had housed the rescued metas at their arrival; once they recovered, they would be transferred to the guest rooms of the visitors wing, wearing power-dampening bracelets; while Caitlin and Martin ran a battery of tests on the dozen patients’ DNA sample in one of the lab rooms, Cisco, Ronnie and Barry designed tech to neutralize the metas' powers in another lab room (in case some of the rescues ever turned hostile and putting meta-cuffs on them wasn't an option); Laurel and Bette worked on creating new identities for those who wanted to get completely off the radar, and to find legal and not so legal ways to avoid being kidnapped again by the military. Iris had even joined their discussion to offer her insight on witness-protection protocols.

Before Barry had sped her back to Linda’s, Iris had almost resumed what Barry’s friend had interrupted, but the speedster had reluctantly stopped her after a languorous goodbye kiss because he couldn’t guarantee being able to run safely after being affected by her touch.

It had only been two days since, yet Iris couldn’t wait to be alone with Barry, preferably at his place, but anywhere with the guarantee that no one would interrupt them would do just fine.

The couple was mostly silent on their ride to the venue of the party—an art gallery rearranged just for the event—but their silence was fraught with sexual tension, the fire in Iris reflected in Barry’s eyes—he was wearing contacts for the evening, which the cop totally approved. 

“I forgot to tell you,” he told her in panic when flashes of light got their attention as they approached the drop-off zone.

“About the gossip magazine reporters and photographs? I already knew,” she assured him with a smile. “Linda gave me a crash course about this type of events. Not that I’m completely ignorant about them. My father is a Blues singer, and until I was sixteen I had to tag along whenever he performed, which was in upscale lounges and clubs. Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you in front of your parents’ friends.”

“You would never embarrass me Iris,” Barry asserted earnestly as he gently gripped her hand.

She nodded in acknowledgment and smiled in response to his own smirk.

“What?” she asked, curious at the mood shift.

“You’re actually going to help me graduate from my pariah’s status,” he told her.

“Pariah?” she repeated, confused.

“I’m the only adult who’s never brought a plus one to Osgood Rathaway’s birthday party in the past ten years,” he informed her with a silent wince. “Rachel, Hartley’s mother, never fails to tell my mother every year, and though I have never been pressured to bring a date, I couldn’t be more honored and pleased that you’re coming with me tonight.”

It’s not that Iris was getting any idea, but…Was that the smoothest sexual innuendo that had ever come out of Barry’s mouth?

“So you didn’t bring Becky Cooper when you dated in college?” the cop dumbly asked in an attempt to keep her mind out of the gutter.

“How do you know that I dated Becky?” the young man questioned with wide eyes.

“She told us at a school reunion,” the detective admitted with a shrug as she blinked at a few flashlights.

The slow progress to the valet parking area was nearing its end.

“But then she transferred from SCU to CoCU, and two reunions later she invited us all to her wedding with this oil tycoon,” Iris added. “I remember feeling bad for you. Not saying that she’s a gold digger, but she’s always liked the high life.”

“I learned that a bit late,” Barry commented with a sigh. “Or rather, she learned that I wasn’t into the high life a bit late. Rather than jealous, I was relieved when I received my invite, even though I didn’t go to the wedding. For a while I felt like I’d wasted her time. I’m not sure why she expected me to be different from how I was in high school. And to answer your question, this event is in the middle of finals week, so no, I never brought Becky or my other dates from college or grad school.”

“Eww, finals,” Iris feigned disgust. “I’m so glad that I got my degrees online. I don’t get why anyone bothers with attending classes in person anymore.”

“To get embarrassed every time you arrive late to class, of course,” Barry claimed, his serious tone making Iris burst out in laughter.

And it was with that good mood that they both emerged from the car, the door opened by a valet. From the press conference on Wednesday, Iris remembered to look past the photographs’ shoulders in order not to get blinded by the lights. She was relieved that no one actually asked them any questions…Because every reporter was further up the stairs leading to the entrance, focused on Senator Jeffrey McMillan and his wife. 

“What has you looking so _ arrested _, Officer West? Never been to an art gallery, I suppose?” a voice the cop recognized distracted her from the man who wanted her dead.

Hartley Rathaway had kept his glasses on, so the lenses were annoyingly reflecting the flashlights as he and Laurel got surrounded by the photographs for a good minute—which was fair, the lawyer slash meta-human criminal looked gorgeous in her off-the-shoulder black dress.

“You _ have _ chased after Zoom at multiple art galleries,” the arrogant young man recalled with a tilt of his head, “but I can’t remember if you’ve been inside those, rather than waiting outside like a good guard dog.”

“Watch it, Hartley,” Barry warned his fellow rich heir.

It was disconcerting to see them speak not-so-pleasant words with smiles on their faces. Iris only had hers in place because she was exchanging a ‘men, I swear’ look with Laurel.

“You in a tuxedo _ and _ looking dangerous when you’re pissed off all at once? I might faint from the heat,” Hartley reacted cheekily as he fanned himself with his free left hand.

“Don’t expect me to catch you if you do,” Laurel told him at his right elbow as she herself checked Barry out. “Because I’ll be down there on the floor with you.”

Before Iris could start feeling territorial towards her boyfriend, the blonde woman momentarily let go of her date to lightly hug the cop and force her to exchange air-kisses.

“Don’t worry Detective, I know who the body _ underneath _ the tuxedo belongs to,” she whispered in Iris’ ear before returning to Hartley’s side.

The bespectacled man gaped at the two women, only erasing the betrayed and scandalized expression from his face when a photographer caught it on camera.

“What’s his problem?” Iris asked Barry in a whisper as they entered the gallery at a more sedate pace than Hartley and Laurel, the latter inefficiently attempting to slow down the stomping of the first.

“Not sure what Laurel told you, but Hartley has super hearing,” he informed her. 

Oh. 

Well, served him right for coming at her boyfriend right in front of her.

The detective was feeling a bit overwhelmed once she and Barry were done greeting the Rathaways, the Palmers, the Queens—or, rather, Oliver Queen and his date Felicity Smoak, and what was the Star City’s most eligible bachelor doing in Central City?—and all the other esteemed families that attended the billionaire’s party.

The _ You don’t happen to have a brother, do you? For my son Hartley _ from Rachel Rathaway was the funniest most flattering comment she’d ever received, and it helped the cop stay in a good mood even as she got her eyes back on McMillan during refreshments time.

“Still think that bugging him is a bad idea?” Barry asked her discreetly as he passed her a flute of champagne.

“I didn’t say that it was a bad idea, I said that it’s _illegal_,” she reminded him just as she spotted Laurel Lance sneaking into the display room _alone_, half an hour before everyone was supposed to according to the program—yes, the birthday party had a _ program _.

“Speaking of illegal,” the police officer commented as she took a sip of her drink. “Please tell me that you’re above…‘doing errands’ at the event of a family’s friend.” 

“What?” the unmasked Zoom reacted distractingly though still at a properly low volume, his gaze intent on a man she didn't know. “No, _ of course _ we don’t steal from the Rathaways. And remember that Hartley wants me to help him with his father’s C.F.O.’s? I need to see Hartley about it now, before he’s forced to mingle with his parents’ business partners.

“You do that, I’ll go touch up my make-up,” Iris lied, maybe too blatantly because Barry did a double-take as he unlinked their arms to step away.

“You’re perfect, Iris, _ always_,” he smoothly complimented her as he held her hand up and brushed his lips across her knuckles.

Ugh, could McMillan, the C.F.O guy, Black Siren and _ everyone else _ just disappear so that Iris West could get Barry Allen to herself?

Not now, obviously, because she had to make sure that laurel Lance didn't have a personal agenda that could ruin the evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always welcome! 
> 
> I failed at inserting pictures, any tips on how to do that (from Dropbox) is welcome!


	23. Part 6_Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picking up where we left off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost there! Concluding the McMillan problem and tackling the elephant in the room: Iris' a cop, Barry's a thief.

“Looking for something?” Iris asked Laurel, who was scrutinizing an abstract painting, thankfully from a distance.

“Do you ever turn off your detective mode?” the thief asked back with a brief glance at her before she went back to inspecting the artwork.

“I am breathing the same air as three superpowered thieves and the man who wants me dead,” the cop answered quietly after she looked back to make sure no one was listening. “It’s quite difficult to turn off my detective mode in such company.”

“It’s interesting that you’re still suspicious of Barry,” Laurel commented before she bunched up her dress in order to crouch down and inspect the bottom of the painting frame. “Ah, knew it!”

“What is it?” Detective West questioned as she walked closer to the blonde woman to look at the art piece.

‘Wind Symphony’ it was called. The price was exorbitant, but Iris could see how someone would want deftly brushed swirls of blues and grays meeting to form a dreamy haze in their collection. The painting had a soothing element to it.

“It’s a fake,” Laurel informed as she carefully stood back up and smoothed down her dress. “I stole the original on a solo mission half a year ago, but kept it as I got double-crossed by my associate. Then I heard that he still sold it, so I was curious to know how he passed the inspection.”

“I am curious to know that too,” Iris admitted, shocked by the information.

The meta-human looked around, then signaled the cop to get closer, almost shoulder to shoulder.

“Watch,” Laurel said before puckering her lips and blowing softly on the painting, emitting a low-pitched whistle.

The Detective was briefly alarmed as the colorful curves were displaced on the piece of canvas, leaving a blank circle in the middle, but then they snapped back to their original position.

“What…?” Iris whispered, incredulous.

“It’s a perfect holographic copy,” the thief explained. “My associate had the time to scan the original before I realized that he was trying to play me. I guess that he digitalized the image and encoded it in nano-projectors, maybe a few thousand of those so that even if one accidentally touches the canvas, the overall integrity of the hologram is preserved. Only the touched area is disturbed, but it goes back to projecting the portion of the image within a second.”

“Thousands of nano-projectors?” the cop repeated. “That sounds expensive.”

“Stolen tech is _ free_ Detective,” the blonde woman corrected with a wink. “But this tech is very difficult to get your hands on, even on the black market. It’s definitely worth more than this painting is.”

“Why don’t I like the way you’re saying it?” Iris deadpanned.

“Relax, I’m actually going to do something good here,” Laurel claimed with a smile. “I’ll return the original after the event and the team will then have access to quite a few nano-projectors. It’s a win-win situation.”

Iris was relieved that Barry’s teammate had no intention of playing around tonight.

“Alright, time to go back to making amends to Hartley,” the blonde woman announced as she stepped away from Iris. “I have to pretend that I’m sorry for encouraging you to debauch my crime boss.”

“I’m not going to…” the cop started to defend herself, but trailed off when Laurel gave her a pointed look. “I don’t _ need _ any encouragement to ‘debauch’ my boyfriend,” she corrected with a defiant lift of her chin.

“I think I do have to warn you, though,” the thief offered, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Barry is into you, but he cares about us too. And unlike him, we are mostly criminals because we like it. I can speak for Cisco and I that we're not stopping our 'errands' any time soon, which means that Barry is stuck babysitting us since he's a loyal puppy. So if you have problems with his extracurricular activities, _ Detective West,_ now’s the time to discuss it with him, or to run away.”

“I’m a cop,” Iris immediately replied. “I don’t run away.”

Laurel chuckled softly as she walked away, leaving Iris to stare at the painting.

Yes, she and Barry needed to talk about his criminal activities. Working with Team Zoom had provided her useful insight into what those activities actually entailed. Their cause was a good one, but their method didn’t completely sit right with her.

“I would joke that even with your promotion you couldn’t afford that,” a male voice said to her left, “but knowing that you are dating Barry Allen ruins the joke.”

Iris took a quiet, deep breath to calm down.

Jeffrey McMillan. The nerves of this man.

“Senator,” she greeted flatly.

“Detective West,” the older man greeted back with a smile. “We meet at last. I must admit, for a while I underestimated you. As a cop and as a woman.”

“Did you?” she asked as she adjusted her position to be able to see the door.

“Page kept rejecting Collins’ suggestion to bring you into the fold,” the corrupt politician informed her. “Eric insisted that you couldn’t be bought, and that if you ever seemed approachable in the future it would be because you’d be undercover. He regretted teaching you the ropes, you know. Never expected you to be so good. There’s poetic justice to the fact that you took him down the very same week that you got promoted. The very same day, according to Collins.”

“Just like I will get a promotion the day I take _you_ down,” Iris threatened, happily letting the senator believe that she was behind Page’s arrest.

“You’ll find that I’m the wrong man to target, Detective,” the older man countered calmly. “I have a reach far beyond what you could imagine. Even if you were to marry into the Allen-Thompson family, you still wouldn’t have enough power to make me watch my six.”

“She’s not the only one who wants you gone,” the vibrating voice of Zoom said across the room, and Iris blinked as her hair was displaced when the speedster placed himself in front of her and the politician.

He was vibrating from head to toe, his silhouette barely recognizable.

McMillan visibly paled as he gaped at the most wanted meta-human in Central City.

“And unlike her, I have quite enough _ power _ to make you watch your entire clock,” Zoom added menacingly.

“Z-Zoom,” the senator stuttered before his eyes went back to Iris. “Is this…You two? That’s how you were able to arrest Zolomon! You had help from _ another _ speedster!”

“I’m sure that I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the cop played coy.

“Page was wrong,” the older man asserted. “You _ can _ be bought. You’re just very expensive, huh? Forget Barry Allen. Zoom can get you anything you want in a second!”

“Like the body of the man who put a hit on your head, at your feet,” the speedster played along as he turned his head towards her. “Would you like that, Detective?”

“You’re a thief,” she reprimanded him despite knowing that he wasn’t serious. “Not a killer.”

“True, I worked hard to maintain my reputation,” the speedster confirmed before grabbing McMillan’s collar so fast that it took a moment for the politician to start shaking in fear. “And _ your _ foster son ruined that reputation. Detective West here did me and yourself a favor by arresting him. That’s why I’m here: to thank her for exonerating me, not because we’re associates. I’m sure that she’s itching to cuff me this very moment.”

“Meta-cuffs don’t fit in clutches, fortunately for you,” Iris joked flatly as she patted said clutch, tucked under her arm.

“Don’t you have something to say, Senator?” Zoom asked McMillan, who sputtered around before staring pleadingly at the cop.

“_ I’m sorry _ for accusing you of being a dirty cop,” he apologized after swallowing (his pride, most likely) loudly. “You are a good, no, a _ great _ police officer, Detective West. Central City’s finest, indeed.”

“That’s a good start,” the speedster appraised as he shoved the politician to the side. “But that’s not enough. What else?”

“I—I’m sorry for threatening…For endangering your life!” McMillan immediately added. “Forgive me, Detective West. Considered the hit on your head gone.”

“Like the detective pointed out, I’m not a killer,” Zoom said as he walked backwards towards the back of the room. “But I _ am _ a thief, Senator, and I will empty all your bank accounts to the last penny if I hear that you so much as looked at Detective West wrong. In fact, get out of here _ now _. I don’t want you to alert anyone that I’m coveting the invaluable art in this place. You’re a politician, give a good lie as to the reason for your departure.”

Fear, outrage, and humiliation warred on McMillan’s face for a good minute, but he put himself together, fixed his collar and nodded at Iris without looking at her, mumbling ‘detective’ before exiting the gallery.

Iris blinked at the spot were the politician was standing before turning around and gasping at Barry, who was fixing his bowtie.

“You have your suit underneath that?” she asked skeptically.

“Not exactly,” he answered with a smirk before walking towards her. “I don’t need one if no one can see me.”

Iris could see him now, and though part of her wanted to roll her eyes at his smug face, a much bigger part of her wanted to kiss him for getting rid of McMillan for her.

“You were kidding about coveting invaluable art, though, weren’t you?” Iris had to confirm.

“Was I?” he answered with a one-sided smile, making her frown.

“You said earlier that you wouldn’t steal from the Rathaways,” she reminded him. “Laurel even plans on returning the original of a fake painting here.”

“Oh, good, I was wondering if she’d noticed that a fake of Wind Symphony is listed on the program,” he replied cheerfully as he eyed the painting in question. “It doesn’t belong in our base where no one can enjoy it. Wait, how…? That looks _ exactly _ like the real one,” he added in a whisper, sounding impressed.

“Nano-projectors, thousands of them according to Laurel,” Iris explained, and Barry nodded knowingly. “But that’s not the point. Why did you change your mind about stealing—”

“By invaluable art I meant _ you _, Iris,” he cut her off gently as he started walking backwards again, making her follow along towards the back of the room.

“You are art made flesh,” he smoothly complimented, making blood rush to the Iris’ cheeks even as she skeptically looked at the wall he was about to hit.

“Thanks,” she replied quietly, “but what are you do…”

She held her breath as he made them both vibrate and walk through the wall, taking them to an empty and dark room, its only source of light the moon coming through the ceiling-high windows providing access to a balcony.

“There,” Barry said as he stepped around her, dropping a hand to her lower back. “I _ stole _ you away from the other guests,” he joked.

“Oh,” Iris reacted as she let him guide her outside.

They had a view on a part of the Lake of the Ozarks, glistening in the moonlight.

“That’s beautiful,” the cop whispered as she placed her hands on the balustrade to slightly lean forward and take in the whole view.

“Yeah,” the speedster agreed, but from her peripheral vision she could tell that he was looking at her, not at the view.

She turned towards Barry when she heard a beep from his smartwatch.

“What’s wrong?” she asked with a frown.

“Nothing,” he assured her with a smile before stepping into her personal space. “Just activating the power-dampening feature.”

Iris’ heart rate spiked up before her brain even processed the information, and her head went up just in time to receive her boyfriend’s first kiss of the night.

* * *

Barry couldn’t wait until he could control his powers when touching Iris, because this..._ This, _ he wanted to experience while his lightning coursed through his veins, enhancing the endorphin rush that came from kissing the woman of his dreams.

For now, he was totally satisfied with just hearing her quiet moans as he tasted the champagne on her tongue; smelling the layers of scent she gave off, a combination of perfume, hair spray and _ Iris _ ; feeling her hands on him, one gripping his upper arm to maintain her balance while the other caressed his jaw, then cupped the back of his neck, and slipped into his hair, undecided on where its favorite spot was; and seeing her blown out pupils, her full lips, her _ beauty _ made eerie by the moonlight as they parted for air.

The boldness Barry had channeled to be Zoom without his costume started to fade as Iris interlaced her hands around his middle. He could barely control his urge to shift his weight on his feet as his gorgeous date looked up at him from under her long lashes. 

“You’re okay, Barry?” she asked softly as she leaned up to kiss his jaw.

“More than okay,” he answered before kissing her forehead and dropping his head on her naked shoulder, wrapping his arms around her in turn. “I’m just really happy that McMillan will leave you alone now.” 

“Thanks for that,” she replied softly, rubbing her hands up and down his back. “I would’ve found a way to get him off my back eventually—I was thinking of having Page take a deal—but your method was definitely _ faster _, pun intended.”

Barry laughed softly, glad that he had suppressed his powers because he very likely would’ve purred if his vocal cords had vibrated as he hummed in satisfaction at the back rub. 

That felt _ so good _. Being close to Iris was better than he’d ever imagined. And getting her sincere gratitude for getting rid of the senator definitely fed his ego.

“You’re welcome,” he voiced out loud as he lifted his head and leaned away to look her in the eyes, and he panicked a bit at her pensive look. “What is it?”

“I don’t want to upset you,” she started, and _ that _ wasn’t a great start. “You’ve done so much good in the past years, Barry, I saw just how much on Thursday…”

“_ But _ I’m still a thief,” he guessed where she was going.

“It’s not so much about you or even your teammates,” she assured, gently gripping his hand. “It’s the _ other _ criminals that you guys deal with. Laurel told me how she got double-crossed that time she stole the ‘Wind Symphony,’ it didn’t sound too great. I know that you can handle yourself but—”

Barry couldn’t help it, he cut her off with a kiss. He’d really just meant to drop a chaste one, to show how he appreciated her still caring for his safety despite knowing that he had powers...but she deepened the kiss and they got lost in each other for a few more minutes.

“You _ distracted _ me,” the cop accused with a poke to his chest when he managed to end the kiss.

“You were...Umm, you were saying that you know that I can handle myself,” he recalled with an apologetic smile.

“I do," she confirmed, "but I don’t like that you guys are enabling truly heinous criminals to conduct their businesses,” she finished her thought with a nod. 

“But if they didn’t conduct their business with us, then they would be doing it with other heinous criminals,” Barry countered. “We have put a few bad guys out of business by taking over their turfs, or made them change the nature of their business to match our demands.”

“If you gave me the right intel, I could get SWAT to shut down the other bad guys’ businesses _ for good _,” Iris suggested pointedly. “All I need is a list of names and a few addresses.” 

Barry felt himself switch back into his thief persona, lifting a skeptical eyebrow at the cop.

“You want me to snitch,” he deadpanned.

“You work for the_ police! _” she reminded him with a light push of his shoulder. “Get your loyalties straight, Allen!”

“But the police can never keep tabs on _ everyone _, Detective West,” he replied playfully, though he was serious. “When SWAT shuts down one place, two or three others jump on the opportunity to fill in the gap. If the new places are run by some subordinate of a powerful meta, or by the pocket filler of a politician, then the city is in a worse condition than it was from the start."

“So what, you'd rather protect the status quo? That’s _ your _ solution to keep Central City safe?” she questioned with a frown as she completely let go of him to prop fists on her hips.

Barry refrained from sighing in frustration. He knew that this moment would come, sooner or later.

While he really wanted to assure Iris that he would do anything to change his criminal ways, he actually couldn’t. At this point, Zoom was too intricately connected to Central City’s organized crime.

“I want my team to infiltrate as much of the criminal network as I can,” he informed her before hesitantly reaching out to one of the cop’s arms. “That way, I’ll know exactly who plagues every corner of every street of my city.”

“I don’t think that..._ thieves _ get far up in the world of crime lords,” she argued firmly, though she reached back, letting him take her hand. “Barry, you’ll have to do more than just steal tech and expensive jewelry to be respected by big bads like Goldface.”

“Well, I’m not _ just _ a thief,” he reminded her with a shrug. “I’m a _ speedster _ too," he added. "And my teammates have their own impressive if outdated reputations as ruthless meta-humans themselves. I’m nowhere as notorious as Goldface, but the other criminals _ do _ fear me.”

“You know, I have a very hard time processing _ Cisco _ killing Kyle Nimbus,” Iris admitted with narrowed eyes. “Frost and Siren look properly dangerous, but Vibe looks so… _ Wholesome _.”

“He killed Nimbus in self-defense,” Barry informed her as he used their linked hands to pull her closer with a slightly shaky hold. 

(He was a bit nervous about the conclusion of this conversation. He didn't want Iris' work ethics to affect their personal relationship.)

“Most of the murders under any of their names are cases of self-defense, to be honest," he resumed. "That first year after the storm was crazy, remember? Overnight, a bunch of petty criminals thought that they were invincible, and when they met other meta-humans they wanted to assert their superiority. It was a literal jungle out there.” 

“Tell me about it,” the detective agreed with a sigh as she smoothly tucked herself against his side, and she _ fit _ so well Barry was tempted to just drop the subject and savor this moment. 

“I know that I wouldn’t have made it without you, Barry,” she said softly as she looked up at him. “You as Barry Allen, brilliant forensics scientist _ and _ you as The Streak, faster-than-a-bullet vigilante. We were well over our heads dealing with metas for _ weeks. _We all relied on you back then. You haven’t received proper recognition to your contribution to fighting meta-human criminality, and while I doubt that you ever will as a speedster, I’m going to work my hardest as a level three to make others recognize your worth as CCPD’s most valuable CSI.”

Barry beamed at how she seamlessly acknowledged both sides of his identity, but put more emphasis on the role he had chosen for himself. Not that he had felt forced to become a vigilante, but it had been a moral obligation rather than a vocation.

“Thank you, Iris” he whispered as he bent over and kissed her nose.

She was so _ tiny _. How did all her strength and compassion and intelligence fit in that small frame?

"I'm not _ that _ small!" Iris argued with a laugh, and _ oops _, he'd actually said that out loud, hadn't he?

"But thank you for the praise," she added more softly as she lifted on her toes to kiss him—Barry made sure to meet her halfway in order not to aggravate her further about her height.

"It's not praise, it's the truth," he insisted before deepening the kiss, sensing that she wanted to resume their debate on his criminal activities.

The speedster channelled some more of his confidence to slowly crowd Iris against the railing of the balcony, relishing the brief wide look she gave him when he framed her body with his outstretched arms.

But then she narrowed her eyes at him.

“Don’t think that I don’t recognize this attempt to distract me from the matter at hand,” she warned him even as she looped her arms around his neck.

“What matter at hand?” Barry played coy, and chuckled as she rolled her eyes at him.

“That you and I remain on opposite sides of the law when you clock out,” she answered seriously. “You’re still too fast for me to catch you, anyways, and I don’t know the location of your base…But if I see your teammates during my patrols, don’t expect me to look the other way. I will try my best to meta-cuff you all.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, Detective West,” he replied solemnly. “You are Central City’s finest, and your integrity is one of the many reasons why I love you.”

Iris blinked, looking as surprised by his confession as he felt himself, his heart beating faster after a delay.

Yes, they had confessed their feelings to each other before, _ twice _, but both times had been in the heat of the moment.

Now, however, they were calmly discussing their relationship moving forward, so his declaration had more weight somehow.

“And your _ selflessness _ is one of the reasons why I love you, Barry,” the detective said with a soft smile as she gently combed through the short hair at the base of his nape. “So while I’m not totally happy that my boyfriend is secretly a super-powered criminal, I won’t ask you to compromise your values for my peace of mind.”

Barry gasped, and silently stared at Iris with wide eyes for a moment.

“What?” she asked with a slight tilt of her head.

“You…You said—_ boyfriend _,” he pointed out at the lowest audible volume he could manage.

“Yeah?” she confirmed with a blink. “I mean, we are together, right? I’m your girlfriend,” she added less confidently.

“Nothing would please me more than to call you my girlfriend,” he quickly replied.

(Calling her his wife definitely would please him more, but he wasn’t going to tell her that so soon.)

“Okay, _ good _,” the cop commented before dropping a kiss on his chin, then she grabbed his left wrist and read the time of his smartwatch.

“Everyone’s about to move into the art room now, we should go.”

When they returned among the crowd, Barry didn’t even try to hide his stupid smile, which widened when he received glares from Hartley and twin inquiring looks from Ray and Sydney—Barry knew that the brothers were going to drill him about Iris at the first presented opportunity, possibly to report their findings to their mother but also to satisfy their own curiosity. Though they weren’t as close to him as when they were in college, the Palmers did care for him. The speedster would never forget the party they had thrown at their SCU dorm to cheer him up when Becky had broken up with him.

Barry would gladly share with the _world_ the fact that he had landed Iris West.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this was satisfying! It would've been ideal if Iris could've just kicked McMillan's ass, but she's a newly-promoted cop, her hands were tied.
> 
> Only one chapter left! It will be a sort of epilogue.
> 
> Comments are always welcome! Thank you if you're still reading this!


	24. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three years later, on Earth-2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another WestAllen multi-chapter fic completed, I feel so emotional right now!  
I'm decently satisfied with this epilogue. There's a short intense WA drama, but it's a flashback, so no worries.
> 
> Warning for shameless office PDA between husband and wife because I found the West-Allen scenes from last episode lacking*

“At first, I didn’t pay your name any mind. A thief with superspeed who robbed high tech labs and the occasional art gallery? The chances of our paths crossing was minimal.

Then three years ago, the rumors of the Dark Speedster finally lived up to his name, killing members of the Hammers, and that intrigued me. I had a few partners connected to those thugs, so I stayed informed on the case. In the end it wasn’t even you, but some other speedster who got killed while in police custody. ‘Just a false alert’ I thought.”

“I never realized that there was a _whole team_, not just one man behind that one syllable: Zoom. I didn’t connect the dots between the falls of DeVoe, Savitar, Kadabra, The Trickster, and my own beloved Blacksmith until I realized that their turfs and businesses weren’t up for grabs. No, you and your pervasive group seized control of _my city_ district after district…Slowly, gradually, until one day there was no profitable deals to make that didn’t fill the pocket of a _criminal_ _with not a single case of collateral damage_ in his track record.”

Kenyon paused from his monologue and extended his huge arms to encompass the auction room and its occupants.

“This event used to be a rendez-vous point for my closest associates,” he resumed, “yet I do not recognize any face! You have changed the landscape of Central City’s black market without _ my _ explicit consent. You have changed what it means to be a crime lord in this part of the country, and _ I _ will not stand for it! I will not cede control of _ my city _ to a petty thief!”

“I resent being called ‘petty’ by someone who ruined this highly-anticipated event by breaking several codes of conduct, all just to have a moment,” Zoom commented cheekily, standing with his arms crossed just a few feet away from Goldface. 

Several people around the two metas cleared their throats in an attempt to mask their chuckles.

Kenyon glared at the speedster, pointing a meaty finger at him.

“You don’t even have the guts to show your face,” the older crime lord accused him. “It shows that you are nothing but a fraud.”

“I wear a mask because I was judged too handsome to be seen in public,” Barry joked.

“True!” Two voices confirmed from among the crowd. They sounded like Siren and Piper.

“Then I will gladly beat your face beyond recognition,” Goldface announced before stomping towards Zoom.

Barry felt his heart rate pick up, at normal human range because Goldface had rigged the place with a power-dampening signal. Cisco was currently trying to deactivate it, and despite his whispered reassurance that he was almost done—at least the coms were still working—the fastest thief alive felt like he couldn’t count on his powers to get out of trouble this time.

“This is going to hurt,” the speedster mumbled as he adopted a defensive stance.

But before Keith Kenyon could walk into his personal space, loud ramming noises resonated at the main (automatically sealed) double doors, followed by the very worrying sound of dozens of coordinated footsteps.

“Police! Freeze!” Several SWAT agents shouted once they breached into the room, and Barry’s lips lifted in elation as three things happened simultaneously: Cisco screamed “got it!” in his earpiece, his powers resumed their electric flow in his veins, and he identified one of the police officers, who didn’t have SWAT printed on their tactical vest. They were still covered from head to toe, face hidden by a helmet, a gas mask and infrared vision goggles, but Barry would recognize that small body anywhere.

_ Iris. _

“Don’t move! Freeze! Police!” the raiders kept shouting at people, quite in vain, so they launched smoke and tear gas bombs.

And probably anti-meta tranquilizer gas bombs, and though Zoom and his team were immune to the formula circulating in the black market, he wouldn’t test that immunity against the constantly changing formula used by law enforcers.

“Damn it!” Goldface exclaimed, but he quickly put himself together and turned his whole body into gold, clothes included.

Before he brought both fists down to the ground to create an earth-quake like disturbance, Zoom sped around the crowd, placing his hands on the shoulders of Plastique and Frost.

“Change of plans!” he announced cheerfully. “Let’s find Cisco and go home!”

“I want to have some fun!” Frost objected as she pointed at the time-frozen group of cops. “Just a little hand to hand combat. I haven’t been training just for fun!”

“Iris is leading the raid,” Barry informed her with a raised eyebrow.

“What’s she doing here?” the ice-meta whined before following him across the building. 

He let the two women out of flash point as soon as they reached the engine room, where Deathstorm—it was just Ronnie tonight, Martin was out of town to attend his daughter’s graduation—had already joined Cisco.

“You guys can go, I’ll get Siren and Piper,” Zoom instructed with a nod. “Best timing _ ever _ by the way, Vibe!”

“I’m quite proud of it myself,” Cisco replied with a wide smile as he opened a breach through which the team escaped.

A minute or so later Barry detected the low hum of Black Siren’s cry, and ran towards it.

She and Pied Piper were surrounded by SWAT officers trying to shoot them down with stun guns, and despite being stabilized by Piper’s immobilizing notes, Siren’s sound bubble didn’t look strong enough to withstand all the electric charges being thrown at it.

Using all his focus, Zoom sprinted towards his teammates in flash point, only exiting it to phase through the sound bubble—the stun charges tickled him slightly, interesting—before returning to it as he touched Hartley and Laurel’s arms.

“Thank fuck,” the first one exhaled in relief after removing his flute from his lips. “Is West training those guys or what? They get smarter and more efficient every damn time!”

“What is your wife even doing here, huh?” Laurel questioned as she rubbed her throat. “Isn’t the captain supposed to just sit and look important in her office?”

“I’m as surprised as you guys,” Barry admitted as he led them out of the room at a brisk walk.

“Then why are you _ smiling _?” Rathaway pointed out in outrage.

Hey, couldn’t a man be excited to see his badass wife in action? Iris always kept Barry on his toes, but this was hands down the most unexpected surprise he’d had from her in a while.

While indeed, Captain West was mostly stuck with administrative duties, she would coordinate raids or supervise field officers bootcamps now and then. She hadn’t been out in the field herself in over a year, so seeing his favorite cop on this uneventful night was a pleasant turnout for the dark speedster.

“Laurel, request access to the base, we’re going back,” the team leader instructed, and once that was done he sped the three of them to their headquarters.

“Dude, it feels like the police are tracking us _ everywhere _ nowadays,” Ronnie commented with a frown. “Are you _ sure _ that you didn’t accidentally slipped intel to your wife? Do you sleep talk or something?”

“Iris wasn’t in charge of any of the last three…My bad,_ last five _ raids we’ve been caught into in the last three months,” Cisco pointed out. “That’s still suspicious, boss.”

“Every successful raid provides the police with criminals that Iris can turn into P.I.s,” Barry reminded them with a shrug. “My guess is that they’re the ones providing her the intel that leads SWAT to our associates. We’re always at the wrong place at the wrong time because, as our good friend Goldface informed all the guests at the auction, we now have control over a big piece of Central City.”

“That guy's monologue was so uninspired,” Hartley drawled before dropping on a chair. “But I did fear for your face, handsome. Were you really trying to take on Kenyon with your bare hands and no powers? That wasn’t bold, that was _ suicidal _.”

“I would have survived,” the speedster estimated with a shrug. “I trusted Cisco to take down the power-dampening system before I died.”

“That’s _ not _ funny, but of course you can count on me,” the engineer replied as he popped a thumbs up. “Well, that was a bust. We needed those nanobots. Why is nano tech never getting cheaper?”

“You’re supposed to know the answer to that question, _ idiot _,” Hartley talked back, which triggered a very much expected exchange of insults between the two metas.

“By the way, here Cisco,” Barry said as he connected his smartwatch to the main system, smiling when he heard half of his teammates gasp in surprise when they realized what he was sharing.

“You bugged _Rosalyn Glosson_?” Frost asked excitedly. “We’re finally going to get our revenge on The Turtle!”

“If her ex-husband contacts her _ before _ she notices the tracker,” Barry specified cautiously before locking eyes with Cisco. “Keep a record of all the places she stops between now and then. Iris wants a report on this mission, by the way. She’s still pissed that Glosson attacked the precinct.”

“Tell her that I’d have a suit ready for her if she wants to join us,” the breacher joked. “What was her alias again? It’s been forever since that Mercury Labs mission.”

“I think it was Twain,” Barry recalled. “And I’ll pass on the message in a minute. See you guys. Laurel, don’t let Cisco sleep here!”

“He’s not my problem anymore!” Laurel replied before he sped away from the secret base.

Only once he arrived at the loft did Barry remember that indeed, Cisco and Laurel were in an off phase, and might actually break up for good.

Siren and Emerald Archer had hit it off suspiciously well during a joined mission in Star City. And tonight, Cisco had made Lisa Snart laugh at one of his jokes. That had been bizarre to witness.

The speedster took a shower and reheated the dinner he’d made between his day job and his night activities. He was mildly concerned to note that Iris hadn’t been home since she left in the morning.

Then he realized that she would probably stay at the precinct until late into the night to type her report about the raid.

With adrenaline lingering in his veins, the speedster ran to the precinct to make sure that his wife came home at a reasonable hour.

* * *

“Can’t believe that you got _ the mayor _ to pay bail,” Collins commented with a chuckle. “She’s pissed.”

“Well, _ you _ make sure to remind her to show up to court, and she won’t have to worry about losing a penny of her dirty money,” Iris replied with a knowing look as she slammed close her locker in the armory.

With McMillan out of the game a couple years back, Collins had become Snart’s lackey. The fact that he had been trying to get into Captain West’s good grace of late meant that he was ready to jump off the Snart’s ship.

The whole city thought that Iris wanted to become the next Mayor of Central City, but she didn’t.

She had her suspicions on where the rumors came from. Rather than asking for grandchildren, Nora and Henry Allen were nagging Barry and Iris about “settling down”. Nora was still a very active CEO at Thompson Realtor, but apparently one of her COOs was about to retire and she wanted Barry to leave CCPD and fill in the role.

And every time Iris attended an important event with her in-laws, they never missed to tell people how safe the city had become ever since Iris had become the chief officer of her precinct. Certainly, the more power she was granted, the better it would be for the good people of Central City.

Iris was satisfied with her fast climb through the ranks, and felt like she would get bored with a fully administrative role. As the captain at CCPD, her most hands-on duty consisted of yelling at new recruits during training sessions, but since she was the boss at her precinct, no one could stop her from going out in the field now and then.

Which was why she’d joined SWAT on tonight’s raid, and it had been so _ thrilling _ . The weight of her tactical gear, the on-the-go briefing, the jargon and hand signs…Iris felt so much more comfortable during that fast-paced, high-risks mission after a year of inactivity than in any of the fancy galas and charity balls she’d been attending since dating her now husband Barry Allen. Since her promotion as CCPD chief, she now represented herself as _Captain Iris West_ at those pompous events on top of representing her husband’s family as _Mrs. West-Allen_.

Speaking of, how was it that her _ husband _ had failed to tell her that Zoom and his team would be at that black market auction? The cop in her had been irritated to see the elusive thief, but the wife in her had been worried to see him face Keith Kenyon, a.k.a Goldface.

The imposing meta-human crime lord had almost brought the building down with his gold-covered hands, making half of SWAT lose their footing with the earth-quake created by the impact of his fists on the floor.

Then Kenyon’s subordinates had exchanged fire with the police, granting him time to escape. None of the thugs who got captured were willing to sign a deal with CCPD or even the Feds, though. They were too scared or too loyal to their boss.

Among the twenty some arrested from the illegal auction house was outgoing Mayor Lisa Snart. The corrupt politician had demanded to be released without a fuss, claiming that she’d had no idea that the event was organized by the most influential criminals of the city she was supposed to help keep safe. Iris had asked D.A. Horton to make her pay bail instead.

"Will do, boss," Collins cheekily announced, walking too close to her but Iris was now desensitized to his distasteful attempts to…She didn't even know what he hoped to achieve. She was a married woman. 

"Captain!" Barry called in a jovial tone, making Iris smile before her eyes even found him.

“Late to the party as always, Allen,” Collins mumbled as he walked away after nodding curtly at Iris.

The captain walked side by side with the Science Department Supervisor of CCPD, letting him close the door of her office once they both entered it.

Iris smiled at the warm dinner spread out on the coffee table, but before she could take a seat on the small couch in front of it or thank her husband for his thoughtfulness, she was gently but quickly pushed against the wall by her filing cabinet.

While one of Barry’s hands grabbed her by the hip, the other pulled on the tie keeping her hair in a ponytail, then his fingers raked through her released tresses before cushioning the back of her skull and pressing her harder against the wall.

“Barry, what—” the cop started, the rest of her questioned silenced by her husband’s slow but demanding kiss.

Iris weakly attempted to push Barry off of her. They were at work, for heaven’s sake…Alright, they _might_ have made out in her office and in Barry’s lab a few times over the years, but the SWAT team commander was supposed to stop by for a quick debrief soon!

After a few passes of her husband’s tongue against hers, however, she quickly melted into the kiss. It was fortunate that her office was mostly sound-proof because she let out a few embarrassing sounds when the scientist lifted her off the floor, making her wrap her legs around his middle and respond to the roll of his hips against hers.

“Barry! What’s gotten into…Ah!” she tried to ask her husband when his lips finally left hers, only to suck on her neck.

Iris stopped reciprocating Barry’s dry humping when she realized with alarm that she was very close to an orgasm, and she slapped his shoulder with enough force to make him wince.

“Ow! What are you doing?” he questioned in a stage whisper, his face flushed and his pupils blown out with arousal behind his foggy glasses.

“What _ am I _ doing? What are _ you _ doing?” the former detective hissed back with a lighter slap on his shoulder. “Let me down! What if someone walked in?”

“I locked the door,” he informed her before playfully nipping her bottom lip. “And everyone knows that we’re married, a little office PDA between husband and wife isn’t going to get reported.”

That tone, that glint of mischief in his beautiful green eyes, plus his disobedience of her explicit command…Barry was in his_ Zoom _ persona. 

Iris now knew what had gotten into him: he had likely spotted her during the raid, and to this day the cop didn’t understand what about seeing her in uniform or full tactical gear turned him on, but turn him on it did.

“At least get us in flash time,” she suggested, feigning irritation in her voice.

“Yes, _ Captain _,” he whispered with a satisfied grin before nibbling her ear lobe, and Iris’ body spasmed as the speedster’s lightning surged up and caged them in the time bubble.

Damn him, he knew what hearing him call her by her rank with _ that _ tone did to her. Five minutes in the time bubble was all Barry needed to make her come with his fingers after that.

“This is…This is _ the last time _ I let you in my office unless we have a case to discuss,” the police chief breathlessly threatened for the third time this year, her upper body sagging against the wall.

“Sorry, I didn’t…Yeah, you’re right—sorry,” her best CSI stuttered as he carefully pulled back up her pants and buttoned up her shirt before kneeling back down to pick up her hair tie. 

Iris could never get used to his personality switch at the precinct. At home or anywhere else she could deal with any side of Barry Allen, but at work she expected him to be Barry Allen, the science nerd she had fallen for all these years ago. He usually only needed to praise her beauty or competence with his eyes full of admiration and love to have her give into her desire to kiss him silly.

“You should eat,” he recommended as he pulled her away from the wall and sat her on the couch once she was done fixing her appearance. “Your coffee’s still hot,” he pointed out shyly.

“Thanks, babe,” she replied before wolfing down her meal, then taking her mug to her desk to start her report. She needed the caffeine to sharpen up her mind after it got all foggy from post-orgasm bliss.

Barry left when the SWAT team commander, Eddie Thawne, arrived.

Eddie had become a good friend since Iris’ promotion to a level 3 Detective, so he greeted the CSI with a knowing smile, and Barry blushed as he greeted him back and promised Iris to come back later.

He did return after the two cops were done with their debriefing, bringing his tablet so he could read reports of current cases just as Iris finished her report.

“What were you doing at that auction, by the way?” the captain asked the speedster almost an hour later as she proofread her report for the second time.

“Oh, Cisco and I want to update the training room, and we heard that a new gen of nanobots would be sold there,” he answered enthusiastically as he looked up from his tablet. “Any chance that you did _not_ seize those?”

“We didn’t seize any nano tech,” she replied with a frown. “Doesn’t that mean that one of the criminals who escaped stole it?”

“Goldface, most likely,” Barry agreed with a shrug. “I was planning on stealing from him, anyways. He ruined the whole event, ranted on and on about the fact that a ‘petty thief’ had taken over his former partners’ turfs. I’ll show him _ petty _.”

“We knew that this would happen sooner or later,” the cop pointed out with her own shrug. “You basically declared war against Kenyon the moment you took over Leslie Jocoy’s contraband business. They’re married, aren’t they?”

“Divorced now,” the thief corrected her. “She actually tried to take over his turf last year. I’m surprised that they’re still on friendly terms. Their faceoff sounded brutal from the first-hand accounts I heard.”

“If you and I can make it work,” Iris commented with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“We’re not_ divorced _,” Barry quickly pointed out, his pitch going up on the word ‘divorced’. “And we’ve never fought like that…”

That was true, though Iris had felt like the world had ended the first time they’d had a fight when they were still engaged.

They’d visited Keystone to see Iris’ dad perform in a fully booked concert hall. Barry had run an ‘errand’ at the Keystone Art Museum, and things had gone south when The Flash had tried to stop him.

The Flash, who was none other than _ Wally West _, Iris’ brother whose existence she had learned literally hours before he exchanged speed punches and kicks with her fiancé. Barry had easily won, which Wally had deeply resented.

Both men had seen each other’s faces, and Wally had threatened to expose his future brother-in-law’s secret to Joe West, who already didn’t like Barry very much.

_ “Why would you steal in a city protected by another _ speedster _ ?” _ Iris had asked, angry and disappointed.

_ “I didn’t think that I needed your permission to steal anything,” _ Barry had talked back stubbornly as he iced his quickly fading bruises.

_ “When _ my brother _ is the vigilante obligated to arrest you, yes, you need my permission!” _ she’d shouted. _ “Couldn’t you send Cisco to get that…What were you even trying to steal?” _

_ “A sculpture, and I _ did _ steal it,” _ he’d bragged. _ “I didn’t know that Flash was your brother, otherwise I would’ve just knocked him out during the first second of our confrontation! I was _ testing _ him. He’s the one teaching Jesse Wells how to use her powers, did you know that? He’s been a speedster for just as long as me but can’t even phase—” _

_ “Are you saying that you provoked The Flash out of petty _ jealousy _ ?” _ the cop had questioned, incredulous. _ “Because Jesse chose him over you as her mentor?” _

_ “I do need that sculpture, it’s the only payment someone I'm getting a favor from would accept as payment,” _ Zoom had claimed. _ “I just took the opportunity to gauge this kid Flash’s abilities at the same time.” _

_ “Apologize to him,” _ Iris had demanded. _ “If you don’t, he’ll tell my dad that you’re a criminal.” _

_ “He has no proof,” _ Barry had pointed out _ . “It would be his word against mine. Against _ ours _ .” _

_ “I can’t lie to my father!” _the cop had objected. 

_ “Why not? You’re just fine with me lying to _ my _ parents,” _ her fiancé had challenged her. 

_ “No, I’m not!” _ the cop had denied. _ “And if you _ stopped _ stealing, I’d love for you to tell them everything, I’m sure they’d forgive you—” _

_ “I don’t need anyone’s _ forgiveness _ for what I do!” _ Zoom had asserted _ . “Not my parents’, not The Flash’s, not your father’s, not even yours!” _

Furious at his words, Iris had left their hotel room and hadn’t returned until they were supposed to check out two days later, giving Barry the silent treatment. She had been so close to taking off her engagement ring when they had returned to Central City—for a silly second she’d wondered if Barry had stolen its diamond, but of course not, it was from Atlantis, Nora Allen herself had helped her son pick it.

The then detective had wondered if she couldn’t marry a thief after all, if bending her moral values over and over again for the man she loved more than anything in the world was too much. She never helped Barry complete his heists, but she often felt like an accomplice of his crimes by not arresting him.

Then she’d discovered that the person that Barry had stolen the sculpture for had been no other than McMillan’s personal secretary, who had accepted to testify against the corrupt politician.

Barry had offered the practically closed case on the senator to Iris as an apology for the argument, and it had earned her the promotion as chief when Taylor retired that year.

Then Barry had magically endeared Wally and Joe to him, to the point that the latter had sung their first dance song at their wedding a few months later.

(There had been no magic involved: Barry had proposed to train _both_ Wally and Jesse in his state of the art training room, and he'd impressed Joe with his musical education and his ability to hold a note)

And now that his criminal activity was actually making Central City _ safer _, Iris was totally fine with her husband being the most wanted thief in the country.

“We're not divorced, but we are on _ friendly terms _ despite being on different sides of the law,” she explained, and narrowed her eyes at Barry’s smirk.

“_ More _ than friendly, I’d say,” he corrected with a wide smile that reached his eyes as he stood from his chair and bent over her desk to drop a quick peck on her lips.

Or rather, he made her _think_ that it would be a quick peck, but when she lifted her chin to accept it, he grabbed it with his thumb and forefinger and tilted her head to give her a deep kiss.

“Get out of my office!” Captain West ordered after shoving him away, heat blooming on her cheeks. “Go home, Allen!”

“Not without you, Mrs. West-Allen,” he replied cheekily with a quick shake of his head. “You’re done with your report, aren’t you?”

She _ was _, and it was getting late. It was time to go home.

Not like she was going to _ sleep _ anytime soon. She was determined to get back at her husband for that surprise orgasm.

Maybe she could convince Barry to role-play about her arresting Zoom, using those handcuffs Laurel had gifted them for their first anniversary as a joke. That was the closest the best cop in Central City would ever get to realizing her old wish of cuffing the dark speedster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments appreciated! Thank you for sticking with this fic, it's been a blast!
> 
> *Overall, I found part 3 of Crisis good and I'm grateful that Iris was an active member of the team, even though it was just to give a pep talk to Ryan Choi, who I don't care about yet, I know he's the next Atom but I just met him on screen and he did nothing but waste time. Iris is the reporter who was supposed to write the article about this Crisis that we've anticipated since season 1, but Lois Lane (who's put her career on hiatus to be a mother) was the one who was given a reporter line, in a **TF episode** in a season we were promised to get more **reporter!Iris**. I never get tired of complaining about this show's treatment of Iris because it's always so outrageously obvious. I only hope that Patton's paycheck is worth it.
> 
> And don't get me started on those West-Allen kisses. To be sure, they're _kisses,_ that's better than _nothing_, but I know that Grandice can do better, is the directing that bad or what? Bring back the s1-s3 WestAllen love 😭


End file.
